Austen Adventure
by Idrelle Miocovani
Summary: Jane Austen desires nothing more than to be a novelist, but writer's block and a band of invisible predators may say otherwise. Little does she know that when three mysterious travellers appear out of nowhere, her world is about to be turned upside down.
1. Chapter One

**A/N: **A few months ago, one of my friends challenged me to write a story where 11, Amy and Rory meet Jane Austen. It took me a while to organise my thoughts, but this is what I eventually came up with. Because I watched _Becoming Jane _prior to writing this, I couldn't help but picture Anne Hathaway as Jane interacting with 11 and company the whole way through - which was, admittedly, a pretty entertaining image.

Enjoy!

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**Austen Adventure**

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**Chapter One**

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a person in possession of a stable fortune, however small, must not be in want of adventure. However little known the feelings or views of such a person may be, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of well-to-do families that it would be improper so as to even entertain the idea that adventure may be welcomed with open arms into a tastefully decorated and well-kept home. Adventure is an alluring and flighty mistress, one whose characteristics are appealing on page and in ink by the light of a warm hearth, but never face to face. The infectious impropriety brought on by adventure is one that can simply not exist in the homes of those who live to boast (or appear to boast) their own good breeding to their neighbours.

At twenty-two years of age, Jane thought of adventure as a brilliant, shining jewel, something to be devoutly wished for in the humdrum of ordinary life in her rural village; yet she knew as surely as she knew the sun would rise the next morning that adventure was something she could only dream about. If she ever had the chance to look it squarely in the face, she knew instinctively that she would throw it out her front door without so much as a "good-day". Adventures were lived through her imagination, through her pen, and the magic of words was enough to satisfy her.

"It would be foolish to consider otherwise," Jane murmured to herself as she scratched away at her most recent endeavour. She paused, setting down her pen to relax her cramping hand; she had been writing for most of the evening. She had lost track of the hour, as was usual once the sun went down.

Jane gently lifted the top sheaf of paper and held it up to the nearest candle, careful not to smudge the still gleaming ink. With a furrowed brow, she scanned her most recent words:

_At fifteen, Susan began to mend her appearance: she curled her hair and longed for balls; her complexion improved, her features growing rosy with colour and softened by plumpness; her green eyes sparkled with intelligence, and her figure, much to her satisfaction, gained more consequence. She lost her love of dirt, instead becoming more inclined towards finery, and as she grew clean, she grew smart. Much to her pleasure, she frequently heard her father and mother remark upon her personal improvements: "Susan has become quite a good-looking girl – she is almost beautiful today!" And Susan was pleased whenever her ears caught those fine words, and how welcome were those sounds! She was pleased to look almost beautiful; it was an improvement upon the plainness that, as she now viewed it, had plagued her for the past fifteen years of her life. To have the generous word "beautiful" spoken within the same sentence as her name was the highest delight she had ever received._

"'To have the generous word'…" Jane frowned. The words felt awkward in her mouth. "That does not sound appropriate—" With an exasperated exhale, she threw down the page and stood up suddenly, causing her chair to skid backwards across her bedroom floor.

Wrapping her shawl tightly around her shoulders, Jane paced around her small bedroom, her thoughts flying. Words, words, words… they were as important to her as food or rest. She had so many ideas, so many characters, so many people inside her head whose stories were clamouring to be told, and words were the only way she could let them out. It was her greatest love to write, but there were times when she could not find the right words.

Jane toyed with the end of her long plait and stared out the window. Though it was dark, she could see the splatter of water on the window pane in the flickering candle light. Steventon had endured nearly a week of rain and foul weather.

"You are as unsettled as my imagination," Jane said, smiling bleakly. Sighing, she sat down at her desk once more and shifted the pile of papers belonging to _Susan_ to the far edge. Taking a new sheaf, she filled her pen with ink and began afresh.

_Dearest Cassandra,_

_I hope you are faring well on your trip to London; I am sure it is lovely there in August. I do long to hear about all the marvellous adventures you must be having; I'm afraid that I have been the example of boredom over the past week. I have been attempting to complete my newest manuscript, but I have been having difficulty finding my way with this particular tale. _

_I withdrew early to my room this evening, intent on continuing my work. _Susan _is proving to be quiet difficult indeed... though I can hear the story within my mind, I cannot seem to find the correct words to tell it. I suppose that is the plague that is brought upon the heads of all writers. Writing is a fickle friends; it provides such peace of mind, but only when inspiration strikes. I know that you, good sister, would tell me that I should rest and leave my imagination for another day, but I confess that I cannot. My mind is the most awake at night and I am not disconcerted by what may lurk in the darkness. It is a peaceful time, where I can set my imagination loose, unfettered by the whims—_

Jane dropped her pen; a deep, howling sound had blown out of the night, interrupting her train of thought. She looked up, peering out her window once again, and saw nothing.

"Distractions," she muttered, leaning over and securing the latch on her window to make sure it was closed against the wind and the rain. She lowered her eyes to the letter on her desk and sat down. Picking up her pen and setting it to the page, she paused on the verge of continuing, but found she could no longer think of the words.

The howl continued to rumble in the shadows beyond her window, growing deeper and hungrier, echoing the wind. The roof creaked. Jane sat still, contemplating defeat, wondering whether she could continue her endeavours for another hour at least.

Jane began the sloping traces of the letter 'O' when the light suddenly vanished, as if some imperceptible wind had gusted through her room and blew the candles out.

"Oh, for heaven's sake!" Jane snapped, standing up so abruptly she knocked over her chair. She fumbled through the darkness and found her tinderbox, hastily using it to re-light the nearest candle.

The howling continued, steady and persistent. Jane stood still, as if torn between thought and action, and finally action won out. She seized the lit candle and strode from her room, thundering down the dark stairs to the entrance hall. She flung open the front door to the wind and the rain, shielding her candle's lonely flame with one hand as she felt the cold wet misting about her.

She stood on the threshold, her nightdress and shawl billowing about her, rain on her face. She peered into the darkness, and for one brilliant, mad moment, she considered running into the wild beyond her doorstep. She was so seized by the idea that she took a step forward – and then a bright bubble of laughter burst from her lips and she turned, shutting and latching the front door behind her.

Her candle had blown out and she shivered with the wet and the cold, but she could not suppress the laughter rising within her as she stumbled back up the stairs to her room. Running out into the wilderness beyond Steventon in the middle of the night, barefoot and in her nightdress, during a storm—

That was an adventure best left for the written word.

As Jane found her way back to her room knowing she could no longer write tonight, she did not notice that the persistent howling from before had ceased. Nor did she notice the shadowy presence that clung to the walls of her home, ushered into the house by an open door way and a favouring storm.

Adventure is a call to the wild left unanswered by many who would consider its nature improper to their positions in life. However, when one does not seek adventure, then adventure will surely and undoubtedly seek them.

* * *

"_That?"_

"What?"

"You want me to wear _that?"_

"What's wrong with it?"

"It'll make me look like – like – like I'm pregnant!"

"It's the style, Amy; I can't have you running around out there without one of these on."

"Can I dress like a boy?"

"_No,"_ the Doctor and Rory said in unison.

Amy swung back and forth on the banister of the TARDIS' main wardrobe room, puckering her lips and fixing the evil dress with a death stare that would make even the hardiest of her Scottish ancestors quiver with fear. "I personally think it would make an interesting challenge."

"You're not supposed to be challenged, Pond," the Doctor said absentmindedly as he tried to unknot a long piece of string.

She blew a loud raspberry. "You didn't use to have this rule."

"I made it up," he said. "Just now. Thought it would be… cool."

"Rules are made to be broken," Amy said immediately, her eyes lighting up.

"Just put the dress on, Amy," Rory said.

Amy rolled her eyes and leapt off the banister. "Oh, fine," she said, striding towards the clothes rack and seizing the offensive piece of dark green material off its hanger. She caught a familiar look in Rory's eye as she passed him, but she spun around with a pointing finger and said, quite clearly: "No."

"Amy!"

She wiggled her fingers at him, silent laughter gracing her lips, and disappeared into one of the many dressing rooms while the Doctor burst into a round of extremely loud laughter.

"Not funny," Rory said.

"She's got you on a string, _Mr Pond,"_ the Doctor said. "Oh look, string!" He had successfully unknotted the long strand of string and held it up, delighted, for appraisal.

Rory crossed his arms. "Like I said: _not funny."_

"That was excellently timed, don't you think?" the Doctor continued, now wrapping the piece of string around a finger. "'She's got you on a string' and 'oh look, string' – uh, no? Not at all?" His voice faded as Rory purposefully ignored him. "Not funny one bit?"

"Not funny."

"Okay, not funny."

The Doctor unravelled the string and put it away into one of his many pockets.

Rory did not look impressed. "Whenever we go into the past, you always insist that we not mess anything up by looking too modern; I don't see why you can't follow your own rules for once. Last I checked, bow-ties aren't part of the fashion."

"Bow-ties are cool," the Doctor said, smugly adjusting his. "They're part of any fashion."

"Bow-ties are _not_ cool, no matter what the century!" Amy said, returning. She was yanking at her long skirt, a grimace etched into her features. She passed both Rory and the Doctor and twirled in front of the mirror, observing her reflection sceptically. "I look pregnant!" she said.

"You look wonderful," Rory said, putting his arms around her. He kissed her on the cheek. "Very Jane Austen, like you walked right out of _Pride and Prejudice."_

"Hmm." Amy raised an eyebrow. "So, Mr Darcy, how about you convince our friend over there to change his mind and take us someplace more interesting than England in the eighteen hundreds?" She raised her voice a little on the last phrase.

"Oi! I picked from the hat! It was fair." The Doctor re-adjusted his bow-tie again.

"Larconian System, the starscape at Mentos—"

"Men_edos_," the Doctor corrected. "Men_tos_ is a type of mint—"

"And now _England_—"

"—which actually has a very interesting effect when you drop one into a bottle of Diet Coke—"

"Doctor!"

"Amy!"

The TARDIS whooshed to a stop.

"Am I the only one who noticed we've landed?" Rory said.

* * *

Jane was becoming quite frustrated with herself. Every time she sat at her desk to write, the words refused to come. Slowly, she could feel the panic begin to rise in her. If she could not write, she would certainly go mad. She took to practising the fortepiano, sometimes very early in the morning, despite her father and mother's protests. It was one of the few ways she could clear her head and squeeze another word or two out onto the new manuscript.

Long walks in the woods and about the village helped to calm her mind. Throughout the rest of the week, she rolled a few sheaves of parchment and stuffed them into her pocket along with a bottle of ink and her pen in case inspiration should strike while she was out walking. Her plan worked; the further she went from home, the easier it became to write and soon she found herself curled under a grand old oak tree in the forest, scratching away as the paragraphs of Susan's story unfurled themselves as clearly on page as they did in her mind.

Her mother sniffed with irritation when Jane returned home late in the afternoon, her fingers stained with ink and her hems with mud – it was still raining frequently – but Jane was content. However, her evenings were no longer peaceful moments of solitude. The howling became ever clearer as the days wore on; it drew closer each night, which was no comfort to Jane. It was continually cold, and she began to have a feeling deep in her gut that she was being watched. There was some kind of mischief occurring in the village, but Jane could not understand what.

_It must be my imagination,_ she wrote in her letter to Cassandra. _I fear that I am acting like a child, scared of the dark, scared of monsters of my own conjuring. For this reason, I have not mentioned the howls to father; I am certain I am imagining them and they will disappear once I have properly found my inspiration once again. Though it pains me to say it, there are moments when I wish that I was not so insistent on becoming a novelist!_

A week after the cold, wet evening the howling had first begun, Jane fetched her shawl and her hat and left on a long walk down the lane. Though it was still cold for August, today was brighter than it had been; the sky was clear, though storm clouds could be seen stirring far away on the horizon.

She was walking along the path without another person in sight when it happened. She felt as though someone was creeping up on her from behind, but whenever she turned around, there was no one there. Jane froze, the breeze billowing loose strands of dark hair around her face, and kept her feet firmly planted on the muddy ground.

"Who's there?"

No one answered.

Jane spun around, one hand held high, but no matter which way she turned, she could only conclude that she was alone as far as the eye could see in the woods. She sighed, knowing that it must be the result of her overactive imagination, and continued along the path.

When she reached her great oak, she curled up against its trunk, breathing in the soft woodland air. Slowly, she spread her pages out before her and nestled her ink bottle in a small crook between two large roots. Setting her pen down beside her, she mulled over Susan's ambitions in her mind, not yet daring to touch her writing instruments for fear her inspiration may flee as soon as she sought to write it down. She did not know how long she stayed there; her eyes closed and she was drifting off into the land of the imaginary, a dreamland where only stories existed. Jane was woken abruptly from this rapture by a strange noise not far from where she sat. Startled, she lurched to her feet, scattering her pages, and placed one hand on the tree trunk, looking around for the sound's source.

There was a whoosh and a thud, and something that sounded very much like the squeak of a door. Jane's brow furrowed. _How could a door possibly be in the middle of the woods?_ she thought. _Perhaps I _am_ going mad…_

She glanced down at the blank pages now strewn across the ground and hastily knelt to pick them up. As she did, she thought she heard voices: two men and a woman.

"…boring! Out of all the places you had to choose from, we had to come here—"

"—it's a forest, far from dull, and a rather delightful one at that—"

"—I don't think it's boring, if that counts for anything."

There was momentary silence and then the argument began again. Jane tried to concentrate on what she was doing – she didn't want to eavesdrop on a private conversation between strangers – but she soon found herself standing by her tree with all of her papers collected, her ears trying to pick up every word the strangers said as they passed by some distance away from her.

"But we couldn't go for an alien forest, now could we?"

"Once you've been to an alien forest, you've seen them all, trust me—"

"—Oh, and every English forest is different then?"

"Ah… yes! Yes, they are all different! I can attest to that, too—"

"_Please,_ if you think that'll work on me—"

"Do we have to argue about forests or is there something else we can bicker about? Or I've got a good idea! We're here, let's enjoy it, before something nasty sneaks up on us, like usual."

They were silent for a moment.

"Splendid."

"Yep. Good idea."

The voices slowly faded as they moved away. Jane paused, wondering about the meaning of their argument. She knew she shouldn't be curious – she had no business in the affairs of strangers – but she couldn't help feeling fascinated by their words. Their argument was a puzzle, and their words a means to fit it together in some shape or form.

The woman – a young woman, for she had sounded around the same age as Jane herself, perhaps younger – had such passion in her voice. Jane could not help but imagine a small, red-haired girl with a fiery personality to match her flaming hair. Then there was the first man; there was such an odd cadence to his voice, as if English were not his first language even though he spoke it flawlessly. Jane imagined him as a university professor, the kind of learned man who grew up learning three languages at once so that all three were indivisible in his mind. The second man was more difficult to place than the others; there was a sense of fond frustration in the way he spoke to the woman. Those two were clearly close acquaintances – brother and sister, or, more likely, a newly married couple. Yes… that seemed more appropriate.

Jane continued to walk, unaware that her feet were carrying her on a meandering course back to her house while her thoughts were occupied with the characters that were taking form in her mind.

A newly married couple, who recently obtained the keys to a small cottage on the property of a great manor house. Henry Watson, of a solid, British family, good-natured and kind, and his wife, Emily – young, beautiful, part-French, or perhaps part-Irish, that would count for her feisty personality. They would have married for love, despite Henry's father's objections. Some weeks after first arriving at their new home, they would explore the nearby woods with an older, distant relative – a Mr John Walker, a professor from Oxford. After a pleasant afternoon, Emily would slip away and discover a lost child left abandoned in the forest. With her kindly heart, she would have no other choice but to bring the child home with her; and then there would be a harsh decision. Should they leave the child to an orphanage, or adopt? Did they have enough money to feed three mouths? They did not; not until Henry obtained a higher paid position. And Mr Walker would advise them —

Jane paused. She was not yet out of the woods, but she had to stop. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out the blank (and slightly muddied) papers, found her pen and ink, and flung herself at the base of the nearest tree. She sat with her knees pulled towards her chest, scrawling her ideas as fast as she could, for once not caring that she was smudging the ink. A new story had formed in her mind and she couldn't bring it into shape fast enough.

Emily, Henry, John, the lost child – the story swirled through Jane's head and she wrote and wrote until the muscles in her hand began to protest and it became physically impossible for her to write anymore. She let her hand drop to her side and her eyes surveyed what she had written: four full pages of cramped, angled writing, back and front, had brought the beginnings of Emily and Henry's story to life. She had never achieved this much with _Susan_ in one afternoon. A satisfied smile (more smirk than smile) played across her lips and she silently thanked the three invisible passers-by who so kindly let her eavesdrop on them by accident.

Collecting her items, Jane stashed her pen and ink back into her pocket. The sun was just going down; they sky was turning pink, but she could see the grey storm clouds drawing closer. Judging from the sun's position in the sky, there was just enough time for her to get back home before it grew completely dark.

_But I'll still hear it from Mother,_ Jane thought. _Shirking household chores in order to write, once again…_

Clutching her precious papers with their still-drying ink, Jane stood and began to pick her way back towards the house, oblivious to everything around her as she puzzled over the details of _Emily_ in her head.

From the shadows of a tree, a dark figure flickered and followed, careful to keep a good distance away.


	2. Chapter Two

**Chapter Two**

Although she wasn't going to let it show, Amy did feel bad for complaining about their trip to nineteenth century England. She had been so thrilled by the sights and sounds of alien worlds that she had forgotten how she could fall in love with her own planet's past.

This old England was beautiful – beautiful and fresh, in a way it never could be in the twenty-first century. Amy threw her head back and breathed it in, holding her arms loftily above her and spinning around. As she twirled, she caught sight of Rory watching her.

"What?" she said, continuing to spin.

"You're going to fall over," he said matter-of-factly.

"No, I'm not!" Amy countered, spinning to a stop and making a face.

"You're swaying," he pointed out.

"Am not!"

"Yes, you are!"

Suddenly, Amy found herself tilting to the right; Rory caught her soundly in his arms. "Okay," she said, breathless, "you win. I am a bit dizzy…"

"Serves you right," he said, setting her on her feet.

Amy looked up at him and for a moment, it seemed like he was going to kiss her, but then he didn't. They were standing in the middle of a country lane than ran parallel to the woods; though it appeared to usually be deserted (Amy doubted that the population of this place was more than two-hundred and fifty), there was the occasional person who trundled up the lane on their own business. Amy wasn't entirely sure about nineteenth century customs, but she was fairly certain that public kissing was frowned upon.

Shame.

Amy glanced over her shoulder and saw a young woman appear out of the woods up ahead. She was carrying something in her hand, which she held up carefully as she jumped the low stone wall that edged the muddy path. She was walking towards them slowly, but seemed far too enraptured in her own little world to take any notice.

"Rory," Amy said, rolling her eyes.

"What?"

"Loser," she teased, kissing him softly. She stepped back and swept the deepest curtsey she could manage. It ended awkwardly when she got tangled up in her long skirt. Rory was looking at her as if it was the worst curtsey ever to be performed in history. He burst out laughing.

Amy straightened and shot him one of her looks. "I don't believe a gentleman would laugh," she said.

Rory apologized with a short bow, but he was still chuckling. "Is that better?" he asked.

"It'll do," Amy said, heaving a dramatic sigh and linking arms with him. "Would Mr Darcy like to accompany me back to the T-A-R-D-I-S?"

"I think, Mrs Darcy, I would," Rory replied. "Though God knows where the Doctor's run off to, it's practically night already—"

"It's okay, he always shows up," Amy said.

They strolled along the lane arm-in-arm as the evening sky blossomed into a deeper pink. They eventually passed the young woman walking towards them; she was completely absorbed in a pile of loose papers she was carrying. She took no notice of them until she accidentally wandered into Amy, bumping her shoulder. The woman looked up, startled out of her thoughts.

"Pardon me!" she exclaimed, stepping back from Amy and Rory. "I was not aware—" She stopped abruptly and stared, gaping at them. Her eyes lingered on Amy's hair – which was loose, wild and looking _very_ red – and her trembling hands clutched at her papers. She blushed to her hairline, bobbed a short curtsey, and rushed away up the lane.

"I'm… sorry?" Amy called after her, but the girl retreated without another word.

Amy exchanged an odd look with Rory, who shrugged.

"We probably just surprised her, that's all."

"That was kind of weird."

"I know, but may that's just how people behave nowadays."

"In nineteenth century England? You've got to be kidding! People didn't stare; that was like death if you stared for too long at someone, and there was some definite staring going on. Or at least I think so."

"I think you're imagining things."

Amy paused and suddenly combed her fingers through her hair. "Is there something wrong with my hair?"

* * *

He had forgotten to check the date. He always forgot to check the date – past, present, future (as River Song could most likely attest), he always forgot to check before darting out those doors into the big, wide universe. He was aware that he forgot to check the date; he usually forgot on purpose. The TARDIS habitually got the flight wrong in some respects; it made it more fun to walk out the police box doors and not quite know when – or where – one was. But he had promised Amy and Rory that he would try better to get the flights right and take them exactly where the hat designated.

He was beginning to regret getting that hat. It was making things complicated and boring.

"Euch," he said. "Hats are a no go."

"Begging your pardon, sir?"

"Oh, sorry!" the Doctor looked down and smiled. He was speaking to a short, squat lady with wild brown hair threatening to escape from under her bonnet. He had left Amy and Rory by themselves an hour or two ago, and had wandered to the nearest farm to satiate his desire to know when and where he was – exactly. He could roughly estimate it: they were somewhere in Hampshire, sometime between 1795 and 1801. There was something funny in the air making it very difficult for him to be able to get a better estimate; something very funny indeed. If Time Lord's were allowed to have tingly feelings that went off right before something went terribly wrong, his was most definitely causing a racket.

He just wanted to know whether he should stick around for the party or not.

"Sir?" the lady said again, looking impatient. She was eyeing him oddly; apparently his sense of dress was not to her approval.

"Oh, right," he said. "I wanted to know if you could tell me where I am and what day it happens to be."

"It is the fifteenth of August, the Year of Our Lord 1797," she said irritably.

"Only 1797?" he remarked. "Not the nineteenth century, then… Amy'll go mad—"

"—and you are in Steventon, sir," the woman finished. "Shall I send for a doctor, sir?"

"What?"

"I said, 'Shall I send for a doctor, sir?'" She raised her voice, speaking to him as though he were deaf.

"But I _am_ a doctor," he said quizzically. "No need to shout… Why should I need one when I am one?"

She opened her mouth to respond – angrily, he assumed, from the way she was looking at him – but he acted quickly by pulling a fresh apple out of his pocket and tossing it to her. She caught it between her meaty palms.

"There you go," he said.

She fixed him with a stormy eye.

"An apple a day keeps the doctor away," he said cheerfully. "Thank you for your help," he added, giving her a sweeping bow and strolling away, hands in his pockets.

"Charlatans!" he heard her shout, throwing the apple at the back of his head.

He ducked, chuckling. "Good old folk in Steventon," he said to himself. "Steventon…"

Why did that ring a bell? He paused, trying to think. Steventon, 1797. He was missing something important, something that should be obvious…

He was walking down the lane by the woods, still trying to puzzle it through, when the answer hit him figuratively and literally.

He wasn't sure if he ran into the girl or if the girl ran into him, but either way she ended up knocked to the muddy ground, her papers scattering around her. She scrambled to her feet and rushed around trying to pick them up before they were blown away by the wind. The Doctor, feeling apologetic, helped her.

"There you go," he said, handing her the final paper.

"Thank you, sir," she said, bobbing a curtsey. "Do watch where you're going, that's the second time that's happened today—"

He didn't hear her words; he wasn't listening. He looked at the familiar scrawl on the top page of the papers and then at her very young, but familiar face.

"Jane Austen!" he exclaimed.

"Yes?"

"THE Jane Austen!"

"Excuse me, sir?"

"Novelist from Steventon, probably one of the greatest writers of the yet-to-come nineteenth century!" The Doctor grinned and held out his hand. _"That's_ what I was forgetting!"

Jane gave him an odd look; for the first time, she seemed to have realised what exactly he was wearing and far from shocking her, her expression said she merely found it bizarre. "Is that what you call a cravat?" she said after a long pause.

"It's a bow-tie," he corrected.

"That is the most oddly-shaped cravat I have ever laid eyes on," she said.

"It's a bow-tie," he insisted. "Why does everyone always pick on the bow-tie?"

"How do you know my name?" she asked. "I do not recall ever meeting your acquaintance."

"Oh, you have – but not yet," he said.

"How mysterious," she said. "Explain."

"I'd rather not. It's a tricky business, you see," he added. "But the pleasure is all mine. Good day to you, Miss Austen, and yes, you better take those papers and continue writing and all those good and wonderful things."

Jane stared at him.

He bowed and hurried away down the lane, thanking the TARDIS for getting the flight path just a little bit wrong. He loved it when accidents happened; he met the most interesting people. Long ago, in another time and with another face, he had met Jane Austen, but that was closer to the end of her life, when she was a published author, when she was living in the yet-to-come nineteenth century. It was an entirely different experience to meet the same person when they were young and new and about to set off on life's adventures.

The Doctor hopped over the stone wall that barred the lane from the woods beyond and began the trek back to the TARDIS. Amy and Rory should have found their way back; they both had keys and he wasn't worried about them. It was a shame, though, that they hadn't been there. _He_ had met the young Jane Austen.

"Imagine that," he said aloud, looking up through the leafy canopy above. It was getting quite dark now; storm clouds had blown in, blocking out any twinkling stars. It was going to start raining soon. "I met Jane Austen today—"

He froze. As soon as the words had come out of his mouth, he knew that something was wrong. There was something else here with him, not a human; his hypothetical tingly sense knew it.

"All right, old boy," the Doctor murmured, withdrawing the sonic screwdriver from his pocket. On impulse, he took out a piece of string as well and wrapped it securely around a finger. "Stop hiding in the shadows – some shadows eat people, don't you know? I just want to see you and know what you're up to—"

It moved. It was lightning fast, flickering from tree to tree. The Doctor spun around in a circle and suddenly there was a red hot pain flashing at the back of his neck and he collapsed on the forest floor. The something slithered away, ghostly in the darkness, barely making a sound.

"Oi!"

The Doctor scrambled to his feet, flicking the sonic screwdriver on. The green light at the end lit up. In its faint light, he noticed the piece of string; it had turned from a greyish off-white to a startling shade of bright blue.

"Ah." He looked up in the direction of the something in the woods. "All right, you bozo," the Doctor said. He paused, momentarily thinking about his word choice – it was an effect of meeting a famous author-in-the-making – and then shrugged it off. "Don't knock me out behind my back, that's not playing fair. And trust me, you want to play fair. Don't get on my bad side." He fell silent, listening intently for a response of any kind. He could still hear the slithering, which meant it was still here, resting several feet away.

The Doctor drew a breath and lunged forwards with the sonic screwdriver, its green light flashing at the something in the woods while he shouted.

"JANE AUSTEN!"

With a bang, a floating silhouette of a humanoid person was outlined in green and then the sonic screwdriver was wrenched from his hand and promptly clonked him over the head. The Doctor collapsed on the ground for a second time and the creature rushed away with an ear-splitting howl.

"Oh good," he said, slowly pushing himself up. "Now I know what you are and I know what you want. I _knew_ there was something wrong here. I just need to know how to stop you from doing something detrimental to the history of English literature." He fetched the sonic screwdriver and tapped it lightly in the palm of his opposite hand.

It began to rain.

The Doctor's eyes widened. "AMY! RORY!" he shouted, sprinting through the woods towards the clearing where they had left the TARDIS. Rain began to fall in icy sheets, soaking the forest floor and causing thousands of little streams of mud and twigs to flow downhill.

"WE'VE GOT A PROBLEM!"

He reached the TARDIS faster than he thought; the door was already wide open for him, with Amy and Rory peering out curiously.

"Oh, there you are," Amy said.

"What's wrong?" Rory asked.

The Doctor clapped him on the shoulder. "Get a torch," he said. "We've got company. Bad company. Very bad company." He paused, catching his breath. "Get a bucket of paint while you're at it."


	3. Chapter Three

**Chapter Three**

Despite her mother and father's reprimands for staying away from home for so long, Jane retired to bed early that evening with mixed feelings that had nothing to do with her scolding. She was elated with the success of finding a new idea, one whose story and characters inspired her, but she was also confused and dismayed by her encounters with the strangers on her way home. She knew from their voices that the three of them had been the people in the woods, and therefore they had a direct relation with her story. That alone was enough to convince her that she did not want to work on _Emily_ anymore (for this evening at least); but as soon as she sat down to work on _Susan,_ she found that she had no inspiration for that manuscript either. It was irritating beyond belief – a writer who cannot write.

Jane was left to sit curled on her bed, contemplating her encounters that evening. The first had been the most unpleasant. The man and the woman were the ones she had deemed to be a couple by the sound of their voices alone; she had seen them kissing from a distance, so they were a certifiable couple. Furthermore, she had reasoned that the woman (who was "Emily" in her mind, as she looked far too much like the character she had envisioned) would be a red-head. Jane was thoroughly shocked to find herself to be so correct. Worser still, she had overheard them addressing each other as Mr and Mrs Darcy, a name she had fallen in love with and chosen for the couple presented within her earlier manuscript, _First Impressions. _She had a terribly strange feeling in her gut; the whole encounter had been strange.

The second had been simply odd. The man (also from the woods, like the other two) was a conundrum. He spoke as if he knew everything; certainly, he had known her name. Yet, his speech was addled by riddles, as if inviting her to investigate, even though he knew full well she would never solve them. He looked terribly young, but awfully old, and the mixture was unsettling.

Then there was the sordid issue of whatever he was wearing… Jane had never seen attire like that.

Perhaps he came from a travelling troupe of gypsies.

Jane sighed and pulled her shawl tighter around her shoulders. Perhaps she should just go to bed… She looked longingly at her desk, with the crumpled papers and the splattered ink. She felt the familiar urge to pick up her pen and write, but she knew as soon as she looked at a blank page, her vocabulary would suddenly disappear and refuse to return until the next day.

She shivered and raised a hand to brush a loose lock of hair out of her eyes.

Her candles went out.

Jane froze. She had been so preoccupied by her thoughts that she had forgotten that the howling from the past week was louder still tonight. She knew nothing had blown out the candle – so how had it gone out? She tried to move her feet to the floor, tried to rise so she could investigate, but she found that she couldn't move. She was like stone, trapped.

There was something in her room with her. She couldn't see it, but she could sense it. It was there, in the corner of her eye—

"GET OUT YOU NASTY… THING!"

The spell was broken. Her bedroom door flew open with such force it banged against the wall, and Jane was blinded by light. She threw her hands in front of her eyes to shield them from the stabbing whiteness that filled her bedroom. As she did, she heard a wordless, ear-splitting shriek. Jane clapped her hands to her ears and, through blinking, watering eyes, saw two people rush into her room.

They were the couple from earlier – the man and the red-haired woman. The man was carrying a strange metal tube from which the bright light was emitted; the woman was responsible for the shriek. She was standing there, in Jane's doorway, screaming and screaming, one long, endless sound.

Jane toppled from her bed, furious and uncertain of what to do. Feeling the need to act, she did the first thing that came to mind – she thundered across her room and smacked the man across the face for daring to have the impropriety to enter her private room.

"Agh!" He dropped the metal contraption with surprise; with it on the floor, everything seemed a little less bright. "What was that for?"

"Get out!" Jane shouted, grabbing her abandoned pen from her desk and raising it like a sword. "I will not bear this… this offensiveness!"

The red-haired woman ceased her screaming. "Oi, Austen!" she called. For the first time, Jane noted a distinct Scottish inflection to her words. "No one lays a hand on my boy except me, go it?" She threw a careless arm around the man's shoulders and fixed Jane with the most aggressive stare she had ever witnessed.

"And I will not stand for your crassness, madam," Jane spat back.

The woman opened her mouth to retort, but she fell silent when she noticed the man's expression. He was staring over her shoulder with concern.

"Uh, Amy—"

"What, Rory?"

"Can you start screaming again? I think it's still here."

"What? Hasn't it – oh, God!"

Jane yelped as she was suddenly seized from behind by invisible hands. She doubled over as pain shot through her body. The wretched girl began screaming again, and Jane dropped to the floor, released. She looked up just in time to see her window shatter outwards as some invisible force blew through it.

"Come on, there's no time to waste!" the man said, grabbing Jane by an arm and pulling her to her feet.

"I can stand on my own!" she snapped, wrenching her arm away from his grasp.

"Stop it!" Amy said. "It'll be back soon. We have to get you out of here and find the Doctor; he knows what to do."

"I am not going anywhere!" Jane shouted, drawing her shawl tightly around her shoulders. Her cheeks were flushing red; she was standing in her nightclothes in front of two strangers, one of whom was a man who had no business being where he was.

"Yes, you are!" Amy yelled. She threw her hands into the air. "Who knew that _Jane_—"

"—Amy!" the man warned.

She threw her hands up and continued. "—that _you_ could be so stubborn? I thought you were supposed to be one of the greatest minds in history!"

Jane's hands clenched into fists. That was the second time she'd heard something like that today. "I beg your pardon?"

"My pardon doesn't want to be begged," Amy said abruptly. "So stop wasting time, if you want to live!"

"If I want to live?"

Amy looked entirely irritated. "Why is it that people from the past never listen to me? Where's the Doctor when you need him?"

There was a crash and a bang from the yard. Amy rushed to the broken window and stuck her head out; Jane followed, peering over her shoulder.

The man with the strange cravat was standing in the middle of the front garden, swinging around what appeared to be a green light on a metal rod while he crushed Jane's mother's lovingly tended flowerbeds.

"I must be going mad," Jane said.

"That's what they all say," the man, Rory, said sympathetically. "Sometimes I still think I'm mad."

Jane pressed a hand to her forehead. "I must have the most embarrassing of imaginations."

"Yeah, well, you better get used to it," Amy said. "Your sensibilities are going to be gone if you ever survive this. Maybe your sense, too."

Jane stared at her, uncertain of how to react. This Amy was clearly a madwoman, imaginary or not.

"Oh, come on!" Amy said, irritated. _"Sense and Sensibility_? It was a joke, okay? Don't you lot get jokes?"

"Amy!" Rory said, but to no avail. Neither Amy nor Jane noticed him.

"I do not know what you mean—"

"Oh, God, this era is depressing! What year is it?"

"1797."

"Right," Amy said. "I officially hate 1797."

"Amy!" Rory warned.

"Right," Amy said. She grabbed Jane's wrist and pulled her forcefully towards the door. "Come on, Austen, we've got a ways to go and crossfire to avoid!"

Jane tried to throw her off, but caught sight of something so fabulously odd, all attempts to be rid of Amy ceased. The woman's hands, freckled and tanned, as if she had just spent long hours outside for the past several months, were quite odd. Her fingernails were incredibly long and painted a vivid scarlet.

When one of those fingernails dug into her wrist, Jane's attention snapped back to the present moment.

"Let go of me!"

Jane attempted to throw her off, but Amy's grasp was solid. Without much pomp or circumstance, Amy dragged Jane through the door and down the hall, Rory following, still wielding the metal-and-light contraption. Despite the commotions and the lights, Jane and the intruders were the only ones awake in the entire house. How her family could sleep through this devastating riot, Jane couldn't fathom, but she could barely concentrate on that fact when it was so clear that she was being abducted by what appeared to be figments of her imagination.

She was ushered out into the front garden, whereupon they encountered the strange man with the odd cravat – whom she supposed was this Doctor the other two mentioned – flailing his arms about and ducking and diving as though he were being attacked.

They could not see an enemy.

"Doctor!"

"DOCTOR!"

"I'm a bit busy at the moment!" he shouted. "Holding off invisible monsters is not a relatively easy task!"

"We've got her, Doctor!"

"Oh!" He spun around and looked almost surprised to see Jane standing there, clutching her shawl and shivering. He gave a short, awkward bow and was brutally knocked flat on his back by his invisible opponent.

Jane screamed in surprise and horror, clasping a hand to her mouth.

"Oh, don't be useless!" Amy snapped. "Rory—"

"I'm on it!"

He tossed her the metal contraption just as she sprinted off in the opposite direction. She caught it with her fingertips and sent him a puzzled look.

"What?"

"No!"

"Oh!"

Amy spun around and shone the bright light directly at the Doctor, opened her mouth and began to scream again.

From the doorstep, Jane had a grand view of the entire action. She saw the Doctor, illuminated by the bright light, fighting to throw off his invisible enemy. She saw Amy standing there, screaming like a helpless child (though Jane did sense there was something else going on here; Amy did not seem like the helpless type and she screamed with purpose, if that was possible). She saw Rory sprinting away into the dark and returning with a large bucket that slopped liquid everywhere –

— and Jane saw him dump it all over the Doctor.

Paint. Bright red paint.

Except most of it didn't end up on the Doctor. Instead, it slathered all over his attacker, who was now visible. Jane started, pressing a hand desperately to her mouth to hold back the gasp of horror. The monster, having realised it was now visible, leapt away. For a moment, it seemed to fix Jane with a look that she could not see, and then it bounded away into the night.

Amy stopped screaming. "Is it gone?" she asked hoarsely, lowering the metal contraption.

"For now," the Doctor said, rising to his feet.

"So?" Rory asked, putting down the paint bucket. He clapped the Doctor on the shoulder. "What do we do now?"

The three strangers looked to Jane, who was suddenly aware that she had nothing on her feet.

"I bid you all good night," she said, "and thank you for this horrifying nightmare." She curtseyed and turned to go back into her house.

"No, wait!" Amy rushed after her and caught her by the arm. "Please, stay here," she said. "If you go back in, that could make things worse. There could be another in there."

"Another _what_, exactly?" Jane asked.

It was raining heavily. No one seemed to have noticed, or cared, that they were all drenched. The wind howled, mixed with the ungodly howls of the creatures Jane had been hearing all week.

"Jane," the Doctor said, "I'm sorry. These things aren't always meant to happen, but sometimes they do. You've become a target by a group of people—"

"People?" Jane raised an eyebrow. _"People!_ People do not howl like the wind during a storm! People do not fly out of broken windows! People are not invisible! _People!"_ She laughed hoarsely; she couldn't control it. She didn't want to laugh, but somehow it was there.

"Okay, okay…" The Doctor pressed his hands together. "They're not people in the same way that you know people. But they are living, breathing – er –"

"Aliens?" Amy supplied helpfully.

"No! _No." _The Doctor squeezed his eyes shut. "'Alien' doesn't mean that in this time period, Amy. It means 'foreign'—"

"Oh, so they're foreigners now?" Jane said, crossing her arms.

"Yes!" The Doctor's eyes lit up. "Yes! They are foreigners, they're like foreigners – but they're not from Earth—"

"They're not from the earth?" Jane looked at him blankly. "Sir, I am becoming drenched in this downpour. If I do not go inside soon, I will become severely ill with a fever—"

"There are people – beings – from the stars, Jane," the Doctor said.

She laughed. "Oh, from the stars! Truly?"

"Listen to me," he pleaded. "There are people from the stars who want to capture you and take your voice."

"My voice?"

"Your words. They will kill you for your words. You're a writer Jane; one of the most brilliant writers who ever lived, and they want to take that away from you."

Jane pressed her palm into her forehead. "Oh, dear Lord…"

"You have to believe me!" He was suddenly there at her side, speaking very quietly to her, so that only she could hear. "You have great things ahead of you, Jane. This world needs you more than you can ever know. This was never supposed to happen to you, and I'm sorry, but now I'm here to fix it so you can be safe."

Jane remained silent for long time. She shrugged off the Doctor, moving away from him. She stood, soaking up the chilling rain, aware of every shiver that ran across her skin. "My imagination is incensed," she said. "The curse of being a writer…" She paused and looked blankly at her trio of trespassers. "Answer me this: have I gone insane? Are you the manifestations of madness?" She fell silent and added, very quietly, "Can I ask the symptoms if they are giving me the disease?"

Silence.

Jane refused to look at Amy and Rory; she gazed straight at the Doctor. She knew that he had the answers, the others were merely distractions. She wanted to hear him speak; she needed to hear him speak. Yet at the same time, she wanted him to disappear and take this madness with him.

"I can't change what you believe, Jane," the Doctor said finally. "But you've seen too much. I wanted to do it another way, but I realised the danger too late. They must have been here for a week—"

"A week is when the unnatural howling began, yes," Jane said.

The Doctor nodded. "Yes. They've had time to infiltrate your house, watch your every move. I didn't want to draw you into this, believe me, but now we have no choice."

Jane turned and gazed at her front door. A week ago, she had tottered down the stairs and contemplated the adventure on which she could embark should she pass its threshold in nothing but her nightdress and shawl, with nothing on her feet. Tonight, she had run out past that threshold in nothing but her nightdress and shawl, with nothing on her feet, and had encountered more than twice enough adventure for a lifetime here in her own front yard.

Adventure was something meant only for the pen – if you were a nice, rich, respectable girl.

Jane paused, breathing in the rain and the cool August night's air.

"What would you have me do?" she asked.

The Doctor smiled. He glanced at Rory and Amy, who both looked relieved.

"We need a safe place far away from them where I – we – can figure out a plan," the Doctor said rapidly. "That safe place is most likely –"

"One of the larger villages?" Jane suggested.

"—the TARDIS," the Doctor finished. "Larger villages won't do you any good, Jane, they will trace you there."

He had begun walking away, Amy and Rory following. Jane hurried after him and caught him by the arm.

"Wait," she said. "Where is Tardis? If I leave—"

"_The_ TARDIS, not Tardis," the Doctor corrected.

"—if I leave," Jane said, speaking more loudly, "what about my family? What could these… these _things_ do to them?"

"Nothing," the Doctor said. "Your family isn't of interest; you're the one they want. They don't hurt anything except those who get in their way."

Jane swallowed hard. "But what about my things?"

"You can borrow stuff from us," Amy said.

"There's no time to go back and pack," Rory added. "They're probably sending more back here right n—"

Something screeched through the air. They all looked up and, through the rain, saw the outline of something partially red, partially invisible floating several meters up in the sky.

"Oh sweet Heavens!" Jane murmured, breathless.

"I'd suggest running," the Doctor said. "Running, right now, would be a _very_ good option—"

The thing swooped.

They ran.

Jane could feel a prickle of fear on the back of her neck. She was not a runner; she rarely had the occasion to run long distances, not since she was a child. The others were much faster than her, and they had the additional help of shoes. She was barefoot and felt every twig and every stone beneath her feet. More than once she tumbled and fell to the ground; but the Doctor was there to help her up again and insist that she kept running.

All the while, they had the large beast hunting them down from the sky like animals.

Once they reached the lane, they jumped the stone wall and rushed into the woods. Jane immediately felt safer, plunging through the woods, though her feet and lower legs would not thank her come morning. With the beast was attacking from the sky, surely that meant that the trees would deter its assault—

"Duck!"

She dropped to the ground and rolled as something large and heavy passed over her. For the first time, Jane remarked that it had an awful stench. She raised her head and saw a red blot retreating into the leafy canopy above. Exhausted but pushed forward by some energy reserve her body had only recently discovered, Jane rose to her feet and continued to run.

They splashed through a small stream and up the opposite bank. At the top of the hill was a small clearing. Jane did not know how long they would have to run, nor how far, or if they could even escape this demon intent on hunting her down. Her heart was pounding in her chest as she clambered up the hill after her new companions. As she drew to the top, she could see the dark outline of something large and rectangular, something that certainly did not belong in a forest clearing.

Amy was the first one to reach it. She fumbled with something within her clothing and suddenly there was a spectacular sliver of warm light shining in the middle of the forest. Rory reached her and they disappeared into the light. The Doctor paused, helping Jane up the hill, and pushed her unhesitatingly through the door. He followed moments later and shut it.

The beast slammed into the closed door moments later.

Jane gaped.

"Oh, my good Lord!"


	4. Chapter Four

**Chapter Four**

It was probably a bad idea, Amy thought, to leave Jane Austen (Jane _Austen!_) standing by the TARDIS door in a torn nightdress, drenched from head-to-toe and gawping, wide-eyed, at the interior of the Doctor's beloved spaceship. However, as much of a bad idea this was, there was nothing much else to be done for it. They had a blasted creature from outerspace trying to break down their door and they had to do something about it.

The Doctor always said that the TARDIS was impenetrable, but the Doctor also said that he could fly the TARDIS properly. Right now, it looked like he wasn't going to risk his door getting smashed open.

"Hold on to something!" he shouted, running up to the console and flicking the first switches he came to.

The engine whooshed to life as Amy and Rory sat down on the nearest seat and held on to the railing.

Jane was still standing still, gawking.

"Jane!" Amy exclaimed.

The TARDIS disappeared from Steventon, Hampshire 1797 and flung itself at full-force into the time vortex.

Jane Austen promptly fainted.

The Doctor looked panicked; take-offs were usually bumpy, no matter what he did. But then a fire started on the console and he was trying to put it out while smacking two levers with the hammer and his attention was wholly occupied by his rickety ship.

Amy caught Rory's eye.

Together, they sprinted from the safety of their seats, crossed the console room and picked up Jane's limp form. Though the floor and the ceiling were shaking enough to make their footing extremely uneven, Amy and Rory managed to carry her back across the room without dropping her or falling over. They set her down as gently as they could on the couch they had just vacated, and held on to the railings for dear life.

The shaking ceased once the fire was put out.

"Oh, well, that was a lot simpler than I expected," the Doctor said, turning around and grinning.

Rory coughed. "Er, your hair is… sort of on fire."

"Oh?" Slightly panicky, the Doctor reached for the fire extinguisher.

Amy wasn't sure whether she should laugh or not, but she decided not to mention anything about fire extinguishers again until the Time Lord's hair settled down to something normal.

"Well," the Doctor said casually, "that was exciting, don't you think?"

Amy brushed a lock of hair behind her ear. "She doesn't look very good."

"Yes, well, you wouldn't look very good either if you had Draghs living in your house for a week, Draghs living off every thought, every emotion, Draghs chasing you down–" He stopped. "Actually, she looks a lot better, considering," he said, shrugging.

"We should probably look after her," Rory said. "She didn't have any shoes, so her feet are cut and bruised; she's lucky she didn't step on any glass after her window exploded."

"There should be a room where she can rest up," the Doctor said. "Out back there somewhere."

Amy nodded. "By the swimming pool?"

The Doctor sighed. "Wherever."

"Or the library?"

"I don't know!" the Doctor said irritably. "Since the TARDIS crashed and got reset, she can't make up her mind where she wants what! It changes each time I go back there!" He shot a glare at the console.

The TARDIS continued to thrum, the engines working smoothly.

They eventually found a rather spacious bedroom with a convenient bathroom for Jane, one that happened to be closer to the swimming pool than the library. After searching for the first aid box, Rory managed to clean up the worst of her cuts and bruises. Amy attempted to search through the selection of period dresses, but could not find anything suitable aside from the ruined dress she was already wearing. Giving up, Amy pulled some clothes and a pair of shoes out of her own closet for their late eighteenth century guest and threw in a poncho along with it.

Amy had a feeling that once Jane figured out how to dress herself in twenty-first century clothes, she would want to wear the poncho.

She scribbled a note for Jane and quickly sketched out a map as to how to find the console room, hoping that the TARDIS didn't decide to rearrange the rooms anytime soon. She left the note on top of the pile of clothes.

Now that their trip was complete, she and Rory left to change back into their ordinary clothes. Amy knew that her muddy dress was not something she wanted to wear while sitting around the TARDIS for the next few hours.

"She'll be okay?" Amy asked later as they made their way back.

"Yeah," Rory answered. "She'll live. A bit shocked, a bit scared, confused… lost. I suppose that's why you don't bring people from 1797 on to a spaceship."

"Still," Amy said, slowly to a halt just outside the console room.

"What?"

She turned and grinned, her eyes blazing with excitement. "Jane Austen!"

"I know!"

"Jane Austen! It's like… it's like meeting Shakespeare!"

"Yeah, Shakespeare's cool," the Doctor commented as they entered the console room. He was fighting with the controls again; the console was sparking. He hit it with the hammer.

It sparked some more.

"I don't think that's helping," Rory said.

"Probably not," the Doctor said, discarding the hammer. "It was worth a go, though."

"Though, I suppose," Amy continued, "she's not as impressive as I thought she'd be. I dunno, I thought she'd be, you know, wordier."

"She called my bow-tie an 'oddly-shaped cravat,'" the Doctor said. He actually sounded disappointed.

Amy snorted with laughter. "Good on her!"

"She's a lot younger than I expected," Rory said. "Though that was before I knew it was 1797 – she hasn't been published yet, then?"

"No, no, she's got ages to go before she reaches that point," the Doctor said. "_Pride and Prejudice_ is still _First Impressions _and _Northanger Abbey_ is still _Susan."_

"You know, I never really liked her," Amy said, sitting down. "They tried to make us read _Pride and Prejudice_ in school and I found it insufferably stuffy. I gagged every other paragraph."

"And then you tried to flush your copy down the toilet," Rory said. "I remember."

"You what?" the Doctor exclaimed.

"I tried to flush _Pride and Prejudice_ down the toilet," Amy said, shrugging.

"But… but… how…" He was stuttering with shock. "That's a classic, Pond! _A classic!"_

"Just because it's a classic doesn't mean that I have to like it," Amy replied. "I think her stories are better suited for movies and miniseries. Like that one with Colin Firth. That's when I realised the nineteenth century could be sexy."

The Doctor apparently didn't hear that as he was still acting apoplectic at the thought of someone daring to flush _Pride and Prejudice_ down the toilet. "You get the chance not only to _meet_ the greatest novelist of her time, but _rescue_ the greatest novelist of her time, and all you can say is that you tried to flush her greatest novel down the toilet?"

Amy glanced at Rory. "He's not going to forgive me for that one, is he?"

"Nope."

"Great. Thanks." She punched his shoulder.

"Ow. You're welcome."

Amy crossed her legs and twisted a strand of hair around her finger, watching the Doctor continue to splutter about her treatment of fine English literature. "So, Doctor, you still haven't explained what Draghs are."

He disregarded her, suddenly fascinated by a bright button on the TARDIS console that changed colour depending from which angle you viewed it. "They're interesting, mildly horrible things, Amy, that also happen to be invisible, for the most part. I do love a good, invisible thing. Of course, you can sort of see them when you shine a bright light on them, so they're not entirely invisible. Oh, but their breath also happens to turn Venellium string a bright blue," he added excitedly, fetching a piece of blue string out of his pocket and holding it up as proof.

"Right, because the universe can be saved by a piece of blue string," Amy said, exasperated.

"You'd be surprised," the Doctor said.

"I'd be more surprised if you ever got around to telling us about Draghs," Amy countered.

"All you did earlier was shout 'Draghs! Get a torch! Get some paint! Let's go!' without any sort of explanation," Rory added.

"Well, I say 'jump' and you say 'how high?'" the Doctor said unapologetically. "That's how this works… most of the time."

Amy rolled her eyes. "Invisible creatures! Oh so scary until you throw a bucket of paint on them and they become visible, in a paint-y sort of way. What do they want with Jane?"

The Doctor flicked a few controls and spun around. "Draghs are a kind of spectre, Amy," he said. "Big, flying humanoid things. They float around the universe and are pretty harmless most of the time. Every planet's got at least a few of them. They form psychic links with the inhabitants, and every so often they stay in one place long enough to start messing around with things. You know a Dragh's been around for too long if you start hearing howling that no one else can hear and if you lack the motivation to do just about anything. It's rather depressing to stick around a Dragh. They're not evil, they just make you feel rather pathetic." He paused. "They do have one peculiarity. Unlike most sentient beings, they don't live off food – they're sustained by sound."

"Sound?" Rory said. "How on earth is that supposed to work?"

"Haven't a bloody clue," the Doctor aid. "Never bothered to look it up. They're ancient creatures, Draghs. Evidently evolution sort of gave up on the whole sound-as-sustenance thing because they're the only people like that. Unfortunately, 'sound' and 'noise' are two very different things. Not all sound is good for them; they can't just sit around listening to anything. Voices are good for them. Human voices, in particular. Draghs are quite sensitive, when you get right down to it. They need the power of the spoken word to survive. Anything else is just noise, and is either unimportant or irritating. Think of it like the difference between eating dirt and eating steak."

"If they like human voices, then how come you told Amy to scream?" Rory asked.

"Not all types of voices are good for them, either," the Doctor said. "To them, screaming is an alteration of the voice and they don't particularly like listening to it."

Amy smiled. "They didn't like that very much. Gave them a right old shock, I think."

"It's like an allergy," the Doctor said. He chuckled. "Imagine that… allergic to screaming."

"And Jane?" Rory asked.

"These particular Draghs are near the end of their life cycle," the Doctor said. "They're weak, desperate. They've probably been on Earth for a couple thousand years, living off scraps of human voices that barely sustain them. If they're going to continue living, they're going to need something a bit stronger than listening to idle village gossip. They've just happened to find what they need in Jane: not just a lovely voice, but also a brilliant mind and a creator of wonderful stories. To them, her voice isn't just the sound she makes when she speaks; it's also the quality of what she talks about. They've been with her for at least a week, probably more. She's been having trouble writing because they've had the time to create a psychic link with her and they've been feeding off that energy. I could tell from the way they reacted when I shouted her name really loudly earlier. They're convinced that her voice is the only one that can save them, and they'll continue to haunt her until there's nothing left but an empty shell."

"What do we do, then?" Amy asked. "Scream at them until they run away?"

"They can't help what they're doing, Amy," the Doctor said. "They're just trying to survive. No… we can't just kick them out, they'll come back and finish Jane off as soon as she's on her own. We need another solution, and I haven't figured out what it is just yet."


	5. Chapter Five

**Chapter Five**

When Jane woke up, she was convinced she had gone mad and died and was walking through some chaotic, colourful purgatory. But that did not seem right; her bed was comfortable, she felt fine, despite her aching feet… She felt right, but what she saw was most definitely not.

She was in a large, spacious bedroom. When she sat up in bed, she felt almost lonely because it was so large. There was nothing in here, save for the bed on which she rested. There were doors directly across from her that led to a bathroom; she could tell it was a bathroom, because at least bathtubs looked the same no matter where you went.

There was a pile of odd clothes on the edge of her bed, along with a note from Amy asking her to join them in the console room once she was ready. She had included a map.

_Thoughtful, but patronising,_ Jane thought. She slid off the bed and limped to the bathroom. Her feet, scratched and cut during her run through the woods, had been cleaned and bandaged.

It took her a moment to figure out how everything in the bathroom worked, but eventually she managed to draw a warm bath for herself. She found soap and some strange liquid that said that it was for hair. Once she had washed, she felt immensely better.

The clothes proved troublesome. She could not put her dirty nightdress back on. She could not bear the awkwardness of running around in her nightclothes any longer, even if her alternative proved to be embarrassing. Jane sat on the edge of the bed, clutching her towel, tussling with the idea of wearing clothes that did not look like clothes. Finally, she gave in, knowing that she could not sit there forever when her new companions were expecting her.

As it turned out, she did not have as much difficulty as she expected. In fact, these strange clothes (that somehow managed to be both feminine and masculine at the same time) were much easier to put on than many of the dresses Jane was familiar with. The dark blue trousers felt odd; she refused to see what she looked like in the mirror, she knew it would be appalling. The shirt, which was a shade of pink Jane had never seen before, was much tighter than she wanted it. She spent several minutes tugging it this way and that to see if it would loosen its hold on her body.

The shoes were the only part of the assemble she did not take immediate offence to, (though the stockings were a trifle short and only came up to her ankles). They were easy enough to put on, and more comfortable than the boots or high-heeled shoes she was accustomed to wearing.

Jane picked up the large piece of hooded material last of all; she was uncertain of what its purpose was. However, after she pulled it over her head and saw how it, in an unflattering way, covered most of the embarrassing issues she had with her new clothes, she decided to keep it. Perhaps this excursion into the unknown would not be as bad as she had thought.

Holding Amy's map between two fingers, she slowly combed her way through this gigantic castle of the Doctor's. She could not comprehend how such a thing of this size existed on the little hill. Surely someone would have noticed it.

_Unless it's not always there. _The thought came unbidden, and though it was ridiculous, it sounded perfectly sensible in comparison to the other strange events she had witnessed in the past few hours.

She passed a large rectangular pool of water and vaguely wondered how many servants this place needed to keep itself running. _But how can it have servants if I haven't run into any yet?_ she wondered. This place did not seem like the kind of home – if it could be called that – that would have something as mundane as servants. It was bright. It was warm. It was… oddly beautiful and enchanting.

"Clearly this is not a place where ordinary rules apply," she murmured to herself and passed by the pool without another word.

Jane knew she was approaching what Amy called the "console room" when she heard their voices. There was also a perpetual whooshing noise; Jane couldn't fathom what it was, but it was not an unpleasant sound.

She saw the doorway up ahead, and suddenly chose to draw aside. They didn't know she was there; they didn't know she was eavesdropping.

But she was curious, and this was the easiest and fastest way of getting information from them – listening, instead of asking questions and having them fumble around for a way to explain it to her.

"I'm just wondering how we're going to explain this to her," Amy was saying. "How can she possibly understand what's happening?"

"She'll be terrified," Rory said. "Would she even think about flying in space, I mean, people from her time?"

"I don't know," Amy said. "I don't think so. She may be famous, but she's as hopeless as any other eighteenth century woman."

"Still," Rory said, "eighteenth century or not, you wouldn't normally go up to people even from our time and say, 'oh, and by the way, spaceflight is possible, and so's time travel', would you?"

"No!" the Doctor interrupted. "No, no, no, you've got it all wrong."

"Sorry?"

"As usual…"

There was something almost condescending to his words, even though his tone remained friendly. Jane had heard a similar thing before; it was the kind of voice the old and the wise assumed when they were instructing the young about the ways of the world.

"People don't change," the Doctor said. "Fundamentally, that is. Humans fifty thousand years in the future from where you two come from are still looking for the same thing – love, friendship, the meaning of life. They still want purpose, which is exactly what you lot want. It's exactly what you lot wanted ten thousand years ago. You don't give your species enough credit. A lot of people have travelled with me over the years, and not all of them come from the twenty-first century or beyond. Not all of them were people for that matter."

"Like a tin dog?" Amy said.

"Oi, don't diss the tin dog!" the Doctor said loudly.

Amy laughed – good-naturedly, though.

"But you see my point?" the Doctor continued. "It doesn't matter if you're from… oh… from Rome in 100 BC or Scotland in 1746 or from Leadworth in 2010, you're all the same, really. Brilliantly human, seeing the great, wide world for what it is because that's who you are." He paused. "And all this – the TARDIS – this is just another part of it. There are humans in 100 BC who can accept it as a spaceship that travels through time. There are humans in 2010 who can't."

Neither Amy nor Rory said anything. Jane stood quietly, one hand pressed against the wall. She wasn't sure she understood all of the words, but she felt she did know what the Doctor was saying.

She had somehow been swept up in a fantasy world that was real; she was onboard a ship that could travel through time, and only now she realised that the reason why these people were so strange to her was because they truly did not belong in Steventon in 1797.

They were from the future.

Jane looked down at herself. She was suddenly struck by an odd feeling as she realised she was wearing clothes that had not been invented yet. No wonder they were so odd.

Still, she felt slighted – offended, even – that because they came from a place in the distant future, she was simpleton compared to them. Jane silently thanked the Doctor's careful words, but even they were not enough to calm the rising burst of anger she felt.

She was a novelist; or, at least, she was attempting to be a novelist. Jane had heard many slights against her character from those who believed she could not live by her pen, but that would not stop her from writing and continuing her efforts. And now she was witnessing the opposite effect. These people, aside from the Doctor (who seemed rather neutral), slighted against her because of the era in which she had been born.

She may be from their past, but she was not a simpleton. She may not understand everything that occurred around her in this extraordinary place, but she was determined to prove that she was just as good as any of them.

Jane immediately felt that she did not need the absurd piece of material flapping around her body. She pulled it off in one smooth motion and flung it aside, entering the console room with her head held high.

Her three new acquaintances were grouped around the strange machine in the centre of the room; it was from it that the whooshing sound came.

The Doctor was the first to turn around, sensing she had entered. "Jane!" he said, looking genuinely pleased.

"Are you feeling all right?" Rory asked.

"I am fine, Mr – er…" Jane floundered. She reached out for the railing at the top of the steps.

"Rory," Rory supplied. "Rory – ah – Pond."

Out of the corner of her eye, Jane saw Amy grin.

"Well, then," Jane said, "thank you, Mr Pond."

"You don't have to be so formal around here, Jane," Amy said. "He's just Rory."

Jane shook her head. "Please, Mrs Pond," she said, "allow me the comfort of my own time's formalities. Your origins may be far beyond my own humble roots, but I still feel inclined to treat you with respect. Calling this man with the rather remarkable nose by his Christian name would seem indecent."

"Remarkable nose?" Rory said.

Amy, however, was unconcerned by this slight on Rory's character. She stood up, fixing Jane with a look that was both daunting and questioning. "How did you know we're married?"

Jane smiled and swept down the stairs with the grace and ease of one practised in the art of moving in long skirts. "My dear Mrs Pond," she said, "it was obvious to me within the first moments of meeting you this evening. Your treatment of each other, however crass at times, displays deep affection that has clearly been garnered over time. Then there is the small matter of your hands; you have recently been in some strong sun and there is a lighter mark where your marriage band should be. I assume, given the robust nature of your work, that you removed it to keep it safe from tonight's adventure." She finished and sat down calmly on the nearest available seat.

The Doctor chuckled quietly to himself while Amy appeared quite taken aback. Shock flitted across her face for the briefest of moments, and then she walked over to Jane and sat down beside her. "How could you possibly know about my wedding ring?"

"I find it helpful to be an observant woman," Jane said. "Naturally, if one is to write about the British gentry, one must be watchful, otherwise their actions become too layered to understand. As for you, Mrs Pond, I noticed your band – or, I should say, lack of one – when I noticed that absurd, infernal lacquer on those talons of yours."

"Talons?" Amy cried, standing up. "What's wrong with my nails?"

"I fear you are far too… futuristic for my tastes, Mrs Pond," Jane said.

Amy made a face. "Please don't say that."

"Say what?"

"Don't call me 'Mrs Pond'!" Amy said indignantly. "It makes me sound like I'm eighty." She huffed and stalked over to the machine.

Jane smiled, absentmindedly tugging at the hem of her long shirt.

"Well done, Jane," the Doctor said mildly. "You've managed to make my friend quite irritable."

"And my nose isn't that big, by the way," Rory added, still annoyed at her earlier comment. He withdrew, moving to speak quietly to his wife.

"What an enigmatic group I've found myself in," Jane said. "Tell me, Doctor, is there a name for you?"

He glanced at her. "The Doctor."

Jane blinked. "Do you not have Christian name or a surname?"

"The Doctor," he said.

"Surely you must be Doctor _something,"_ Jane insisted. "What is your surname? I must call you something other than 'Doctor'."

"It's what everyone else does," he said, shrugging. "It's fine, Jane, really."

Jane frowned. "So that is what they call you? 'Doctor'?"

"Yeah. Nice, simple, easy to remember. Doesn't necessarily bring about a sense of doom like some names—" He stopped, suddenly looking awkward. "… to some individuals, that is."

"That's highly unsatisfactory, sir," Jane said. "Names are important—"

"Oh, very! That's why I chose mine carefully."

"Then tell me what it is!"

"I did. _The Doctor."_

Jane laughed, even though she felt entirely irritated by this fundamentally useless exchange. "I would have you know that I am a novelist, sir," she said. "If you do not tell me your name, I will have to create one for you."

"Hmm." He seemed genuinely interested by this proposition. "It's been a while since someone's given me a name, Jane Austen. What would you call me?"

Jane smiled, thinking of her blossoming manuscript sitting on her desk at home. "John Walker," she said confidently.

"Really?" He adjusted his oddly-shaped cravat – the bow-tie. "And how did you come by such a name?"

Jane rubbed her hands together. She caught the eye of this young, eccentric man who really did not seem like a young man anymore – and truly, she knew that he was not. With eyes so knowledgeable and mannerisms so peculiar, he could not be as young as he looked. Suddenly, she found herself explaining how she heard the Doctor and the Ponds in the woods earlier that day; how she had judged them simply by the sound of their voices; and how her name for him came from the character of John Walker in her new manuscript _Emily_.

Far from being appalled, the Doctor was thrilled when she described Mr Walker as an oddball professor from Oxford.

"Imagine that," he said, clapping his hands together. "Me in one of your novels."

Jane observed him for a moment. "I take it that my novels will eventually become published?" she said shrewdly.

The Doctor paused. "Jane—"

"Oh, do not take that tone of voice with me, sir," she interrupted, "I am but some naïve, unmarried woman displaced in a fantastical machine that has the power to move forward and back through time." Jane paused, feeling her unmasked irritation swirling in her gut. "Please do not spare me the details of my personal life, Doctor, for I have already seen the unnatural." She fixed him with an intense look; ever since she had come to the fantastical realisation that her three acquaintances were time travellers, she had a gnawing, insatiable urge to ask one thing: would her novels ever be published? Would she succeed when everyone said she would fail?

"Jane," the Doctor said slowly, "I can't tell you. You shouldn't even be here – you're too important, I should never have disrupted your personal time stream. I should never have brought you into the TARDIS in the first place, but it was the only thing I could think of, given the circumstances—"

"You speak in riddles, sir," she interrupted, "but I know the answer is yes. After all, you knew my name when you saw my face for the first time, and your exclamation was one of surprise and excitement."

He winced. "Yeah… that's another thing I shouldn't have done—"

"No matter, what's done is done." Jane stood, her eyes sweeping the room once more. Amy and Rory were standing on the opposite side from her, still whispering to each other. Behind them, Jane could see a hat stand of some kind, on which hung one large, black hat. However, it was towards the glowing, whooshing machine in the middle of the room that her eyes were drawn. "This is a ship, you say. A foreign ship. How does she run?"

"Um," the Doctor said, turning around, "it's better to take my word that she just does."

"Barely," Amy said.

"She works fine!"

"You have to whack the console with a hammer," Amy retorted. _"And_ you still leave the parking brakes on."

"No, I don't!" the Doctor exclaimed, flipping a switch behind his back.

Jane was sure Amy noticed. The red-head had shrewd eyes.

"Where are we going?" she asked. "If this is indeed a ship, then certainly we have a destination?"

"Um, kind of," the Doctor said hurriedly. "But that's not important right now—"

"I think it is!" Jane retorted. She felt the colour rising in her cheeks; now even the Doctor was refusing to answer her questions. She felt like a simpleton. Like a child, unknowing of the way the world worked. "You drag me from my home in the middle of the night," she said slowly, her voice low, "in the course of which I am attacked. And then I am brought to this foreign vessel without so much as a word asking for my permission and now you refuse to tell me our destination?"

"Jane, it's not as easy as that—"

"No!" she shouted. "No, it is really quite simple. If I am to accept that all of _this_ is real and not my imagination, or a dream, or some madness encroaching on my mind, then I must accept the three of you as real. As acquaintances, as friends – or as enemies." She paused, catching her breath, taken away by this rush of anger. "In essential terms, I have been abducted by you," she continued. "I demand to know where we are going, otherwise I have no choice but to concede that you are _not_ my allies, but as much my enemy as the monsters in the dark."

There was silence throughout the room. Amy and Rory looked at her oddly, as if they were uncertain of what to say. Jane remembered Amy's words about hopeless eighteenth century women, and her eyes stung. She raised a hand to blot the furious tears from her eyes.

Suddenly, the whooshing noise – which had been so continual until now – ceased.

Jane regarded her three acquaintances with raised eyebrows. "I suppose none of you will say what that is, even if I asked," she said.

Suddenly, she sprinted across the room towards the doors, unheeding of the shouts and calls that followed her.

"Jane!"

"Jane, don't!"

She reached the doors, pulled them open – and fell silent, words and speech blocked from her mind as she viewed the beautiful horror before her.

There was no sound, only streams of light – beautiful, gold-white light – and a vast emptiness, stretching out forever. She looked into the deep void and found it enchanting, but ultimately horrifying. She was aware that her heart was beating faster than it ever had before, and it was with great effort that she pulled herself away from the terrible sight.

Jane turned slowly, gazing directly at the Doctor. "So," she said, her voice trembling. "This is what you are."

Without another word, she walked slowly up the steps and disappeared into the depths of the ship.


	6. Chapter Six

**Chapter Six**

"Ah," was all the Doctor said after Jane disappeared.

Amy blew out a loud breath of air. "That wasn't good."

"I don't think she was supposed to do that," Rory said.

"Bit of a mistake bringing her on the TARDIS, then," Amy said.

The Doctor was pacing to and fro, tugging at his hair like he usually did when he was trying to find the solution to a rather difficult problem.

"Doctor," Amy said.

"Go away, I'm thinking. Hush."

Amy rolled her eyes. "Doctor!"

"Still thinking. Hush!"

"Fine!" Amy said. "If you're not going to talk to her, then I will." She walked briskly across the console room and ran up the stairs.

The Doctor spun around. "Amy!" he called.

"What? We can't just leave her in a great blubbering mess, now can we?"

"Yes, we can," the Doctor said abruptly. "Now stop it before we get into more trouble."

"Trouble?" Amy leaned against the rail. "Trouble like letting Jane bloody Austen see the big, wide scary universe?"

"Yeah, sure," the Doctor said. "Exactly that sort of trouble," He irritably pulled a lever on the console and the open TARDIS doors swung shut.

"Right, well," Rory said as Amy clattered backed down the stairs to the main level, "I'm sure this can't be all that awful—"

Amy passed by him wearing one of her expressions that brought the temperature of the room down to freezing.

"—can't we just say something to her?" Rory finished weakly. "Surely she'd understand."

"It's not that simple, Rory."

"Yeah, things never are with you."

The direct tone to his voice left the Doctor silent for a moment. "Jane's made it very clear that she's going to abuse her presence here to find out her future," the Doctor said, ignoring Rory and pulling a piece of bright blue string out of his pocket.

"And that's bad, is it?" Rory said shortly.

"Rory," the Doctor said, "if you randomly met a time traveller and pestered him with questions about your future, would you want a good answer or a bad answer?"

"I _have_ randomly met a time traveller."

The Doctor flicked his fingers in the air. "No, really – would you want a good answer or a bad answer?"

"I don't think I'm going to answer that."

"What? Why?"

"Because things have a habit of changing when you're the time traveller in question," Rory said bluntly.

"Oh, right… Yeah, they do, don't they." The Doctor was quiet for a moment; he tugged on the blue string in his hands. "Bad example, sorry. But seriously – good answer or bad answer?"

"Knock it off," Amy said. "She'd want the good one, obviously."

"Yes, of course," the Doctor said. "Never can tell with humans, you can be so contradictory sometimes. It's really very confusing." He tossed Rory the string; it didn't fly very far and ended up on the floor. "Now, Jane wants the good answer," the Doctor continued, "anything to make her mad, brilliant writing efforts seem worthy of the paper and the time she's spending on them."

"But we know what's going to happen!" Amy said. "She'll be happy with that answer, won't she? She becomes a successful novelist and everything's good and fine—"

"No."

"No?"

"The big picture, Amy, there's always a bigger picture. And you're not seeing it." He tapped her on the forehead and continued to pace about the console room. "Jane's a lot younger than the last time I saw her. Last time she was all… matronly and professional and very, very quiet, and she had lovely biscuits and a very nice teapot. I underestimated her today. Older Jane is frankly not this frightening."

"Frightening?" Amy snorted. "Frightening how? If anything she was scared stiff of what's outside the TARDIS doors."

"She wants to know stuff."

Amy raised an eyebrow.

"No, I'm serious, Amy. She's very keen in her search for knowledge – just remember the way she identified you and Rory as being married…"

"Yeah, that was a little freaky," Amy admitted. "And is there something wrong with my nails?"

"No," Rory said.

"Yes," the Doctor said at the same time. He rattled on, not seeing the dangerous look Amy shot in his direction. "Yes, Jane Austen is quite – er – freaky these days. Who would have expected? Actually, bad question. All genius are freaky… what is it about art that does that to people?"

He shook his head. "Humans! Tell them one little thing and the next moment they're hungry for more. That's exactly what Jane wants – more. She weaseled it out of me that her books get published. She knows that she'll be a novelist one way, and she will have books – that's in the plural. So perhaps she's thinking now that she know she will be victorious in her pursuit of literary success, she wants to know about the rest of her life and how that will work out for her. That's where it gets dangerous. That's where the trouble is. She'll ask us for every little detail until she knows the whole story, and that – _that_ can't happen. No one should know their personal timeline; it's dangerous and it does funny things to them."

"Then we'll just have to stay quiet," Rory said. "Simple."

"No, no – not simple!" The Doctor sighed, frustrated. "Why do I have to keep saying that? The simple things are the most difficult, the most difficult the most simple. Remember that for next time, Rory, I'm getting tired of repeating myself." He stooped and picked up the blue piece of string from the floor. He thrust it into Rory's hands, continuing to pace. "Jane is smart. She will ask you one thing, and whether you contradict it or agree with her, she'll know if what you're saying is true. She could very well discover everything about herself just by asking us a few easy questions." He sat down on the steps. "People like Jane aren't supposed to see the future."

Amy folded her arms. "Yeah, but we travel with you and there's no problem."

"That's because you're not important."

Amy raised her eyebrows. "Not important?"

The Doctor waved his hands in the air. "No, no, no, don't be offended, it's not like that. I mean, you're not major figures in Earth's history—"

Amy glared at him.

"…I'm doing this very poorly, aren't I?"

"Yep," Rory said. "I'm rather enjoying myself, actually."

"Shut up," the Doctor said. He looked at Amy. "I mean to say that a person like Jane, who has created something so powerful that it lasts billions of years throughout history, should never, ever step outside her timeline or learn anything about her future self. In the future, everyone knows her work, and not just humans. Her novels have touched the lives of many, many people on thousands of worlds. She's influenced great politicians and powerful generals and influential businessmen, and if she finds out _one_ thing about her future beyond 1797, all of that will shift."

"So that's it, then?" Rory said. "That's why we're in trouble? Because if she knows too much, it will have some kind of ripple effect?"

"Exactly. There's a reason why I never take historical figures with me—" The Doctor stopped, laughing. It was a rather hollow laugh, the kind he usually got when he was thinking of something that happened to him a long time ago. "—or at least, why I _should_ never take historical figures with me. They make things very inconvenient for the past if they learn too much at the wrong place in their timeline. Young people are the worst."

"How does that change things so drastically if she knows a little something about her future?" Amy asked.

The Doctor closed his eyes, rubbing his forehead. "Amy, Amy, Amy," he said, "I shouldn't have to explain this to you!" He looked across the console room at her. "Okay. Say, you find out that you are going to die in thirty days time. You know when, you know where, and you know how. What are you going to do?"

"Try not to get killed?"

"Exactly. Survival instinct, good. How do you try not to get killed?"

"I'd probably stay away from the place where I'm supposed to get killed," Amy said.

Rory was looking uncomfortable with this hypothetical situation, but he didn't interrupt.

"Right. So you stay away from the place where you're supposed to get killed, and so you stay alive, and live a long happy life, get a nice home in Leadworth, have a lot of kids, and do whatever it is you humans do." He pressed his hands together. "Do you see my point now?"

"I was supposed to die, but didn't, because I knew my future," Amy said. "So, if Jane knows her future and everything about her books and her life, that would change how she writes them, wouldn't it?"

"And that means that all those politicians and things you mentioned earlier, all throughout time, wouldn't make the same decisions because her novels have changed," Rory added.

"And that's the big picture we're dealing with," the Doctor said. "Jane Austen's novels. What happens here, right now, could possibly wipe them from existence. The Jane here with us isn't _the_ Jane Austen. The Jane with us is a twenty-two year old woman with her whole life ahead of her. She hasn't become a successful novelist yet, and just because she is where you two come from means _nothing._ She may never be a novelist after today; or she might write completely different books. She's already started a manuscript that never existed before; it's hard to tell where this could go."

"So, _Pride and Prejudice_ and all that don't technically exist right now," Amy said. "It's completely new stuff, yeah?"

"No, no, no, no – it does exist, it just _might_ not." The Doctor raised a hand, his fingers tapping in the air. "Time isn't straight," he said. "It's not a line we can run up and down on. It's more like a giant, multi-layered squiggle. Or a pencil scribble. It's like when you write something that you really want to get rid of and you scrawl all over it because you don't have the sense to use your eraser, but it's still there. But sometimes the eraser gets used, whether you want it to or not, and then something can get erased for good, completely by accident, because you forgot that you didn't want to use your eraser."

There was a long silence before Rory ventured out with his next question.

"… so, if you should take Jane into the future, then where are we?"

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Not all space is in the future, Rory! We're still in 1797, just several million light-years away from Earth, in what's basically the middle of nowhere, except for that star right there. We couldn't stay on Earth, Draghs are very adept at sniffing you out if you stay on the ground for too long – and do you really want to think about what would happen if we lost Jane Austen on an alien planet?"

"Oh, stop it!" Amy snapped. She crossed the console room and punched the Doctor on the shoulder.

"Ow! What was that for?"

"So, basically, you're more concerned about what a bunch of idiots do with Jane Austen's novels millions of years in the future than a terrified girl set loose somewhere on your precious ship?"

The Doctor looked confused. "Amy, I don't—"

"Shut up," she said irritably.

"It's not about that at all—"

"No, it is!" Amy interrupted, her eyes blazing, "You'd rather preserve her works than her!"

"But they're the same thing, don't you see?" the Doctor said.

"What's the point of taking her out here if she can't _see_ it?" Amy said heatedly. "Draghs or no Draghs, I don't care – _that's_ what you always go on about. _Seeing_ it. Well, she's here. She's stumbled into this amazing world, and suddenly those rules don't apply because she's bloody Jane Austen?" She frowned. "I'm a little disappointed in you, Doctor."

She ran up the stairs and out of sight before either Rory or the Doctor could react.

"Ow," the Doctor said, rubbing his shoulder. "That really hurt."


	7. Chapter Seven

**Chapter Seven**

There were times when the TARDIS' sheer size – knowing what the ship looked like on the outside – filled you with awe and wonder. There were also times when the TARDIS' sheer size was just frustrating. Especially if you happened to be looking for something in a hurry.

That was Amy's current feelings towards the ship, and she let her know in a long stream of colourful words as she went through her mental list of places to look for Jane. She checked Jane's temporary bedroom first, but it was empty, as were all the locations near it.

"I really hope she didn't go for a walk and wander off into someplace I never knew existed," Amy muttered.

She hurried down the hall and turned a corner – and an idea came to mind that was so obvious she couldn't help but feel idiotic for not thinking of it earlier.

"The library!" she said. "Of course."

Turning, she sprinted back the way she came and zigzagged her way through the labyrinthine passages until she reached the large, oblong doors that led into the library.

Amy had only been inside there once, early on when she had first joined the Doctor. She had found it when she went on an exploration mission to find the pool; she had been entranced by the idea of a pool inside a police box ever since the Doctor had first mentioned it, all those long years ago when she was still a little kid. Having never been particularly fond of books (unless they had something to do with Greek and Roman history and had pictures), Amy had only poked her head inside the room before she left.

Now she wished she had done a thorough explanation of the library.

It was gigantic; just as large as the console room, possibly bigger. The first thing that came to mind was that it was a golden-green Time Lord version of the library in _The Beauty and the Beast._ There were thousands upon thousands of books, all put away on high shelves, some of which had long, spiralling staircases to reach.

"Jane?" Amy called. "Jane? It's Amy. I know you're in here; I want to talk to you, if that's okay."

She couldn't see Jane anywhere, and she was entirely sure if she had been heard.

"Damn," Amy said and clattered down the wide steps that led to the first floor of the library. "I hope this won't take too long."

She began combing the aisles. She checked every level, peered behind every bookcase, climbed every stair, but there was still no sign of Jane. She was about to give up when suddenly she noticed a little alcove between two large bookcases. There was a large yellow chair squeezed into it; Jane was curled on the chair, book in hand, with a pile of books on the floor.

"Hi," Amy said.

Jane didn't stir.

"Um… Jane?"

Jane looked over the top of her book. Amy saw that she was reading _Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone_; she resisted the urge to giggle. "What do you want?"

"I just wanted to see how you are, that's all," Amy said.

"Why are you smiling? Is something amusing?"

"Oh, it's nothing, I just thought of – never mind." Amy pointed at the book. "Do you like it?"

"What? Oh… yes, I suppose I do." Jane closed the cover and sat up straight in her chair. "It's a bit frivolous, and the concept of… er… magic is provocative, but I find the characters to be engaging and it really is quite bizarre. Fanciful, but bizarre. I do enjoy Hermione, however. I think she is the only character who actually has a brain in this entire story."

"Yeah, sure," Amy said. "Those books are great, I actually read them. Re-read them, too."

"Reading is not a comfort to you?" Jane asked.

Amy shrugged. "I can't really say. I spent way too much time playing dress up and seeing psychiatrists when I was a kid to learn to like books much."

Jane put the book aside. "What do you want, Amy? Are you going to attempt to console me after the beautiful horror I saw?" There was nothing in her voice to suggest that she was terrified of the universe outside the TARDIS doors.

Amy sat down on the floor, leaning her back against the wall. "No," she said. "I suppose… I guess… I just wanted to say sorry for dragging you out of your house like that."

"Apology accepted."

"It happens."

"I understand it must happen frequently to all sorts of people across the centuries."

Amy grinned. "You have no idea. You should have seen Van Gogh and the—" She stopped. "Never mind."

"What? Are you about to reveal a bit of the future for me?" Jane peered at her with a mockingly earnest expression.

"No, it just wasn't important. Just stuff. Not important."

"I see," Jane said, folding her hands in her lap.

Amy had a feeling that Jane didn't believe her. "I knew you'd come to the library," she said.

"Is it that obvious in my character?"

"Well… yes."

"Is it because I'm a novelist in the future?"

Amy looked at her. "Yeah, it is. And if you're trying to look for copies of your books, then don't."

"Why should I? They are _my_ books after all."

"The Doctor would say you're not supposed to know," Amy said. "Time complications and all that. But I think it's more fun to find out when you're supposed to. If you know everything about yourself in advance, then there's no surprise. There's no adventure. If you knew exactly how things are supposed to go, life would be awfully boring, don't you think?"

Jane didn't answer for a long time. "I haven't pondered it that much," she said finally.

Amy smiled. "I have a friend," she said. "Her name's River. She drives the Doctor crazy – absolutely mad, it's phenomenal to watch – and she knows things that happen to him in the future. In his future, that is. She writes it all down in this blue book that she carries with her everywhere, and I keep thinking he's going to steal it and look at it, but I know he's not. He wants to – he really, really wants to – but he knows that it wouldn't be good for him. He doesn't want to spoil the surprise. Of course, that means he can annoy River as much as he wants, and every time he asks her about something that will happen, she just smiles and says 'spoilers.'" Amy paused, twisting her fingers together. "So that's what I think of. Spoilers. And spoiled things aren't very nice."

"I… suppose not," Jane said.

The silence was very awkward.

"The clothes suit you," Amy said hopefully.

Jane eyed her. "Are you trying to make me feel better?" The accusation was clear in her voice.

"Yeah," Amy said honestly. "It was worth a try."

Jane wet her lower lip. "Mrs Pond—"

"Amy."

Jane paused. "Very well," she said. "Amy. I…" She took a breath. "I know you are not fond of me—"

Amy looked at her in surprise. "Hang on, what makes you think I don't like you?"

Jane seem legitimately astonished. "I felt certain that you did not. Your general attitude towards me has been… well, it has been unwelcoming."

"I didn't mean—"

"Quite frankly, you are loud and rambunctious and free-spirited and… and very, very different." Jane sat back in her chair. "I didn't know what to think of you."

"Oh. Thanks."

"You make me feel like I should apologize."

"Maybe you should. Or shouldn't. I don't know, whatever you want. I'll just sit here and work on not being offended."

Jane laughed. "Amy, you are a trifle ridiculous."

"Yeah, I know." Amy held her hands out in front of her; the bright red nail polish on her fingernails glinted in the warm library light. "You don't really think my nail polish is – er – 'infernal', do you?"

"No," Jane said. "I was merely accosting a physical attribute because I didn't like you very much at that moment." She paused. "They're… pretty."

"Thanks."

"I have never seen a thing like that. Is it common, where you're from?"

"Yeah, sure." Amy shrugged. "I guess… I guess it was a bit strange for me hearing that kind of thing from you."

"Oh, I see," Jane said. "From your point of view, you were insulted by the Great Jane Austen. That could be considered quite an accomplishment in days to come, I imagine."

Amy snorted. Moments later, Jane was joining her in her laughter.

"So you do have a sense of humour after all," Amy said.

"Perhaps," Jane answered with a smile. "Amy, I… have a confession to make."

"Yeah?"

"I think that my initial rudeness towards you stems from the very real fact that I am…" Jane paused, looking a bit lost as she searched for the right words to say. "I am jealous of what you have."

Amy stared at her. "What?"

"I am envious of you."

"What?" Amy repeated. She stared at Jane, hardly able to comprehend what she was hearing. "Did you really just say that?"

"Yes."

"Jane Austen is jealous of _me?"_

Jane frowned. "Please, don't look so excited, it's rather odd."

Amy laughed. "That is the silliest thing I have heard in a really long time. Now who's being ridiculous?"

"Amy, I am trying to be serious!"

"Yeah, well…" She shrugged. "Yeah. Why are you jealous of me?"

"You have no restraints," Jane said, sighing. "You're a free spirit, as I am trying to be. But mostly… you're my age and you are married. I feel a similar sense of envy towards other women I know who have also been fortunate enough to become engaged and to marry. I am twenty-two, and I am already becoming an old maid. I shall never find a husband if continue to write; that is a quality not searched for in women."

"That doesn't make any sense at all," Amy blurted. "Twenty-two is not old! That's really, really young—"

"Not where I am from."

"Jane," Amy said, "you still have time. Maybe you'll meet someone—"

"I can tell from your tone that I won't."

Amy fell silent, remembering the Doctor's warning about how easily Jane could process information about her future life from the simplest of words. She shook her head. "Stop that. I'm telling you now that I have no idea about your life. I tried to flush one of your books down a toilet once—"

"You what?" Jane looked scandalized. "You threw one of my novels down a privy?"

Amy shrugged. "What can I say? I'm not one for your style of writing, but don't worry about that, I'm centuries ahead of you."

Jane was still gaping at her.

"But you see my point, right?" Amy continued. "If I did that, obviously I never tried to research your life. I know nothing about you. So I can't say if you meet someone or not. And even if I did know, you shouldn't take my word for granted. Don't spend the rest of your life refusing to meet some wonderful guy just because you don't think it's supposed to happen. That's depressing."

"I'm married to my work, Amy," Jane said quietly. "To my writing. What man would want to marry that along with me?"

Amy shrugged. "I saw four psychiatrists and Rory still married me."

Jane's brow furrowed. "Why do I feel like I am having a competition with you?"

Amy laughed. "Good! Because if this is a competition, then I dare you to come back to the console room so we can find out what the blazes is going on with those creepy invisible toe-rags and what we're going to do about them."

"It was always going to come back to that, wasn't it?" Jane said, standing up. "The monsters from my house."

"You bet."

"The Doctor said they were after my voice. I didn't understand – how can something steal your voice?"

"I'm sure the Doctor will explain. He always does. Sometimes it takes him a while because he's thinking about too many things, but if you remind him enough, he'll get around to it."

"But why me? Why do those things want _me?"_

"Because you're Jane Austen, and you're brilliant," Amy said after a moment. "And they're called Draghs, by the way."

"That is a decidedly awful name. What are they?"

"Invisible spectres that are pretty awful, as far as I can tell."


	8. Chapter Eight

**Chapter Eight**

"So, that's it, then?" Rory said, staring through the glass floor.

"Basically… yeah."

"You're just going to let it go?"

"Yep."

"Oh." Rory paced around the console. "That's rather boring, isn't it?"

The Doctor looked up. As was usual when he felt he had nothing better to do, he was sitting on the swing beneath the console, attempting to fix the multitude of minor problems with his time machine. "Rory, do you know what happens when you annoy Amy a little too much?"

Rory chuckled. "Aha. You're scared of her."

"I am not!"

"Yes, you are absolutely terrified of her!" He laughed.

The Doctor leapt off the swing and clattered up the stairs. "I have absolutely no reason to be afraid of Amelia Pond."

"Oh, just admit it," Rory said. "It might do you some good."

"No," the Doctor answered, "I won't because Amy's doing something for me that's very important. We need Jane to trust us right now, and Amy's more likely to bring her to that conclusion than, well, a bow-tie wearing alien and a nurse from the future." He paused, flicking a few switches on the TARDIS' humming console. "And I'm not scared of her," he added. "Your wife's the least scariest thing in the entire—"

"Doctor!" Amy's voice called.

"Agh!"

The Doctor spun around. Amy had appeared at the top of the stairs, Jane several steps behind her. "Amy!" he said. "You caught me by surprise—"

"Scared," Rory said.

"Good to see you, good to see you," the Doctor continued, shooting an annoyed look at Rory. "Surprised, yes, because I wasn't expecting to see you so soon. Yeah."

"Okay," Amy said, looking back and forth between the Doctor and Rory. "Well, if you two are done, I think we have something a little more important to talk about." She clattered down the stairs. "Like what we're going to do about our little invisible friends."

"Amy," Jane interrupted. "If I may?"

"What? Oh. Yeah."

Jane remained at the top of the stairs, staring down at the console room with a firm look. "I confess that though I may not understand all of my strange circumstances, I do remember your words from before, Doctor," she said. "You told me that those creatures – Draghs – wanted my voice. They would kill me for it. When facing them earlier this evening, I had no choice but to believe you and to run. But I want answers. So talk. Please."

The Doctor leaned against the console. "The Dragh aren't creatures, Jane," he said slowly. "They're people from another world. But they don't need the same things that you or I might need to survive. They're essentially formless beings; shadows, really. But a little more substantial."

"Ghosts," Jane said.

"No, not ghosts! To be a ghost, you have to be dead, and these particular Draghs most certainly _aren't _dead," the Doctor said. "They're invisible; you hardly know they're there, unless you shine a very, very bright light on them, or throw something else on top of them. Like paint. Unfortunately, we're out of paint, because I had the one bucket and I haven't a bloody clue where the TARDIS put the storage room where I kept the rest of it."

"Get to the point, Doctor," Amy said.

The Doctor held up a hand. "Draghs need food, just like anyone else," he continued. "But they don't live off bread and water and beans on toast like you lot do. They live on the power of sound. For this lot, that means human voices. It sustains them, gives them shape. If they have enough of it, they become visible, and that's what they spend most of their time trying to do. Being invisible is pretty tough."

"But—"

"Right, hush!" the Doctor said. "Jane, there are three things you need to know. One: the Draghs have been living in your house for at least a week. Two: they've decided that your voice is going to save them from inevitable death. Three: if they take your voice, you will die. But let's not worry about that right now."

"Why?" Jane asked bluntly.

"We're moving."

With a loud bang, the TARDIS floor began to shake, sending its four occupants flying about the console room, trying to grab on to the closest thing to stop themselves from smashing into the walls. Amy and Rory, already accustomed to this sort of thing, rushed to nearby chairs. The Doctor caught hold of the console; Jane went flying past him, caught off guard by the sudden shuddering of the floor. He grabbed her hand at the last moment, preventing her from smashing into the railing.

"What's happening?" Amy shouted over the roar of the engines. "Did you hit something by accident?"

"No, no, no, no!" the Doctor said rapidly, trying to set Jane somewhere safe and take control of his ship at the same time. "It's not me, it's the Draghs!"

"What?" Rory said. "How? They're several billion light-years away!"

"And do you think that matters to a group of spectres who don't particularly care for interstellar distances?" the Doctor said. "Use your head, Rory – of course it doesn't! They've picked up a trail of thermal residue from the TARDIS when we left and they're using it to call us back. I can't stop it unless we jump forward in time!"

"So jump forward in time!" Amy yelled.

"I can't, we're stuck!"

He let go of Jane; she went flying into the railing, unable to keep her balance as the ship shook violently. Tripping over his own feet, the Doctor flailed at the controls, trying to coax the TARDIS into some form of action.

The console sparked, threatening to go up in flames. "No!" the Doctor shouted. "What are you doing? This is no time to act temperamental!"

Jane was sitting on the floor, sensing that it was too dangerous to her balance to stand. "Where are we going?" she asked.

"The Draghs are pulling us back to where we started," Amy said quickly.

"But they'll kill me!" Jane exclaimed. "If I go back, they'll find me—"

"Jane!" The Doctor spun around, leaving the still sparking console to its own endeavours, and crouched beside her. "Calm down," he said quietly. "I'm not going to let anything happen to you. You'll be safe, I promise."

"How?" she said. "How can I be? We have no plan—"

"Oh, Jane, Jane – haven't you guessed? I always have a plan. Half-baked or otherwise, I always have a plan, even if I'm making it up as I go along."

The TARDIS shuddered to a stop. The floor gave one last quake, and then there was silence. Everyone was holding their breaths.

The Doctor slowly got up. "I think that's it," he said finally.

"Are we here?" Rory asked.

"It seems so." The Doctor went to the monitor and looked out. The moonlit Steventon woods looked back at them. They had landed in a clearing, and so far there was nothing remarkable about it.

"I don't see anything," Rory said, looking over the Doctor's shoulder.

"Well, you wouldn't if they're _invisible_, now would you?" the Doctor said.

"You never know! Painted Dragh could still be out there."

"Looks like the storm's passed," Amy said. "What time is it?"

"Three o'clock in the morning," the Doctor said.

"Okay, then," Amy said. "It's three o'clock in the morning and we have some angry, hungry Draghs to take care of. Let's go kick their invisible backsides." She took another look at the monitor and marched off towards the doors.

The Doctor sprinted after her. "Amy, wait," he said, catching her at the door. "Just stay in here."

"Doctor," Amy began to protest.

"Let me do the talking."

"Talking?" Rory said. "You want to talk to them?"

"Well – yeah. Talking helps."

"Doctor, by your own admission, these creatures feed on the sound of the human voice!" Jane said. "You will only be giving them what they want!"

"It's a good thing that I don't have a human voice, then," the Doctor said. "Listen to me, you three – talking is just about the only choice we've got, so let me go out there and see if I can negotiate." He smirked. "And who knows? Maybe a Time Lord's voice is just scary enough to convince them to leave Jane alone." He glanced at them, a meaningful look in his eye. "Don't interrupt."

He pulled the door open and disappeared, slamming it behind him as if to emphasis his last request. Amy and Rory exchanged looks.

"Would I be correct in saying that I am not the only one who has a bad feeling about this?" Jane asked as they grouped around the monitor.

"Absolutely," Amy said, her eyes glued to the screen.

They watched as the Doctor casually stepped into the clearing, hands in his pockets, and waited. He glanced around, searching for any signs of the Draghs. The woods looked very much like an ordinary forest in the moonlight; however, this was an occasion where all was not as it seemed.

Those types of occasions happened with a rather frightening frequency.

"Oh, come on!" the Doctor said. "I know you're there. Just because you're invisible doesn't mean you have to hide. What do you want me to do? Whistle a jaunty tune while I wait for you to show up?"

A breeze stirred the leaves on the nearby trees.

"You called me back," the Doctor continued. "You hijacked my TARDIS' controls. Very clever, manipulating the thermal residue, I didn't even consider that. But not clever enough, because now I'm just irritated instead of impressed. So, come on, let's get this over and done with."

Something rustled on the other side of the clearing.

"They're a talkative bunch," Amy muttered.

"You're really not funny," the Doctor called. "That's the trouble with invisible people, they have such rotten senses of _humour!"_ He surveyed the area coolly. "Now I'm going to ask nicely, and I'm only going to ask once. Come out and talk like decent, civilized Draghs, or I'm going to have to put my foot down."

The wind whistled through the trees.

"And what would you have us say, Time Lord?" The voice that spoke was hoarse and whispery, very much like the wind itself. It was neither male nor female and it lacked the cadence that most species had. For a being that thrived on the sound of a voice, its own voice was remarkably monotone.

Jane paled. Nothing could be seen on the monitor's screen, but she trembled at the sound of the Dragh's voice.

"Would you have us cease our hunt and give in to death?" the Dragh whispered.

"Everything lives and everything dies," the Doctor said. "Not even you can avoid that."

"Hypocritical words from the man who runs from death," the voice said. "You seek to circumvent your own fate at every turn. Why can we not do the same? As long as it lives, every being seeks to continue its way of life. We are old, but we do not yet welcome death. We cannot depart from this world yet."

"Even so, that does not give you the right to take a young woman's life simply to perpetuate your own!"

"Not even for the survival of our species?"

"Her life isn't yours to take!"

"She has the voice. Her words can sustain us for another millennium."

Amy and Rory glanced at Jane. She said nothing, her brow furrowed, a strange look in her eye as she continued to watch the screen.

"And what then?" the Doctor said coldly. "So you live for another thousand years, and then run into exactly the same problem. What will you do then? Take another voice? Another life?"

"There will always be new voices. It is how we exist—"

"No, it's not! That is not how you exist! You listen. You feed on words and voices, and then you depart. That is how your brethren live. You do not drain someone completely!"

"It is not enough to merely listen. Our race has moved on. We crave more than simply sound."

"That doesn't mean you can kill."

"It is one life, Time Lord. One life, one voice, to sustain the lives of dozens. Which would you rather kill? One single being, or many?"

"None, if I can help it," the Doctor said.

"There are only two options: which would you choose?"

"Neither," the Doctor said. "No one has to die today – not Jane, nor you."

The swirl of wind. "Do you offer a compromise, Time Lord?"

"Yes."

"We accept. The Time Lord's voice shall be taken instead."

"What? No!" The Doctor stepped back. "I never said that! I was suggesting something completely dif—"

"No matter. You offered a compromise, and that compromise is your own voice. We do not crave it, but we shall have it."

The Doctor held up his hands. "Slow down, hear me out before you do anything hasty—"

"It is decided. The Time Lord's voice has been chosen."

"_No,"_ Jane hissed. "I won't allow it!" She spun, propelling herself towards the door. Amy caught her just in time.

"Jane, you can't go out there!"

"I can't let him to that!" Jane shouted, trying to throw her off. "Let me go! I _will_ not have him sacrifice himself for me. The Draghs can take my voice, I don't care!"

"Jane, he wouldn't want you to do that!" Amy said, barely managing to keep her from flying out the TARDIS doors. "There has to be another way to save the Doctor."

"We don't have any time to come up with a plan!" Jane said, finally staying put in one place.

Amy looked around and spotted a discarded torch on a nearby seat. She ran over and picked it up. "Let's see how well they do with this again," she said. "If I can do anything, it's scream. I'll scream until they've all run away, the miserable, invisible—"

"Amy," Rory interrupted.

"We've got to do _something!"_ Amy snapped. "We can't just sit in here—"

"I have an idea."

"What? Oh." Amy looked up at him. "What's this brilliant idea of yours?"

"I don't know if it's brilliant," Rory said, "but it may be the only chance we've got. Where's the library?"

Amy frowned. "Now is _not_ the time to go looking for books!"

"Yeah, but in this case we do need a book," Rory said. "We need a copy of _Pride and Prejudice_ and some kind of hologram."

Amy froze. "Will that even work?" she asked. "Won't that break some kind of time continuity?"

"I have no bloody idea, but apart from charging out there with buckets of paint and a torch, what else have we got?" Rory said.

Amy smiled tightly, sprinting across the console room and throwing her arms around his neck. "Go down the corridor, take the fourth right, then the second left and it's the third door on your right," she said. "Love you."

She kissed him.

"Be careful," he murmured.

"I will."

"I'm serious, Amy."

"So am I."

She kissed him again and turned brusquely to Jane. "Go with Rory," she said. "He's got an idea, and it may not work, but at least we can try." She ran towards the door at full speed. "I'm going to hold them off as best I can. No promises though, so make it quick I'll see you soon."

"_Amy!"_ Jane called, but she had already disappeared through the door.

"Come on," Rory said. "We haven't got a lot of time, and I honestly don't know how long this will take."

"Where are we going?" Jane asked as they sprinted up the stairs and into the labyrinthine halls of the TARDIS interior.

"Library," Rory said. "The Draghs want words, so we're going to give them some – and I don't think they'll like it."

Rory had never been in the library before and when he first entered, he thought their plan was a lost cause. It was entirely in character for the Doctor to have a massive supply of books, but the sheer amount stored within the TARDIS made his idea seem downright impossible.

"What are you looking for?" Jane asked, staring at the rows of books with an unflinching gaze.

"Don't get the wrong idea," he answered, "but it's one of your books."

She paused. "Okay."

"You… you wouldn't happen to know where he would keep them?"

"Amy told me not to look for them." Jane paused. "But I do know libraries very well, and how different can the Doctor's library be from the ones with which I am familiar?"

"Honestly," Rory said, "I don't want to take bets."

They split up and began their search, combing the shelves back and forth. As time trickled by, Rory began to feel that they wouldn't succeed. They would be defeated by the Draghs simply because the Doctor's library was too bloody big. It was a rather depressing thought, but he kept coming back to it as their search became more and more futile.

He was about to give up when suddenly he found it. _Pride and Prejudice_ was sitting between a large textbook about fifty-first century politics and a slender volume about different types of grasses.

_No wonder finding anything in here's impossible,_ Rory thought. He pulled it off the shelf and rushed to the centre of the library.

"Jane! _Jane!_ I've got it!"

She appeared quickly and ran down the steps. "Did you?"

He held up the book. "Come on, this isn't over yet."

They sprinted back to the console room.

"I have to admit," Jane said, panting for breath as they clattered down the stairs, "I never thought wearing trousers could be a good thing, but considering the amount of running I seem to be doing, they have been useful."

Rory laughed. "I'll pass your enthusiasm for twenty-first century fashion on to Amy," he said. "Here," he added, throwing her the book, "take this. Read it over while I figure out how to work this."

The TARDIS controls were confusing at first glance, but Rory had been travelling with the Doctor for long enough to know the basics. He was thankful that he had had the opportunity to know that the TARDIS could record material, otherwise this plan probably would not work.

"Okay," he said after a moment of pressing buttons, "I think I've got it set up right. Jane—" He stopped.

Jane was standing still, frozen like a statue, her eyes glued to the first page of _Pride and Prejudice._ A strange noise escaped between closed lips.

"…Jane?"

"My words," she said quietly. "These are… this book… this…" She paused and looked up, her eyes streaming with held-back tears. "This is _mine."_

"Yeah. Are you okay?"

"I… I don't know." She sniffed. "I knew that I would be published one day, but to have the physical evidence in my hands, it's…" She trailed off. "I don't think there's even a word for it."

"Crazy?" Rory supplied.

She laughed, wiping tears from her eyes. "I suppose you could say that, yes." She looked down, her eyes scanning the first page. "I remember writing this," she said, marvelling at the wonder in her hands. "I remember considering every single word, every sentence. I see I must have made a few changes, but it's still the same. It's still my story."

Rory exhaled. "Yes," he said. "It is. And there are lots of people, Jane, thousands of people every day who love that story of yours. You're brilliant, Jane. It might take you years to get published, but you'll do it. The Doctor won't want me telling you this, but I think it's important. Otherwise, why are we bothering at all to save your stories? Your novels are wonderful, Jane, and there's your proof. And now we need to save them."

"And the Doctor," Jane added, smiling tightly.

"Yes, and the Doctor. Are you ready?"

Jane cleared her throat. "Yes."


	9. Chapter Nine

**Chapter Nine**

When Amy charged out of the TARDIS, screaming like a banshee and brandishing the torch like a sword, the Doctor came to the conclusion that even though he had been aware that she had a loud voice, he now _knew_ she had a loud voice. Even his ears hurt when he heard that ear-splitting shriek.

In the light of the torch, he saw the faint outline of an approaching Dragh retreat. The Doctor backed up and took out his sonic screwdriver. "What took you so long?" he asked.

"You're the one who told me to stay inside!"

"Yes, but I never expect you to listen!"

"Oi, give me some credit!" Amy said. "Anyway, you're the one who blundered out here in the first place."

"I didn't blunder! I don't blunder! And – and you better start screaming again, I think there's one behind us!" The Doctor spun around and activated the sonic screwdriver. Sure enough, he saw the flash of a green silhouette retreating back into the woods.

"For invisible creatures, they're pretty cautious," Amy said.

"Yes, well, don't get your hopes up," the Doctor replied. "To be perfectly honest, this is going to be a tricky one."

"And that would be because they're _invisible,"_ Amy quipped.

"Hush, I need to concentrate."

They were standing several paces away from the TARDIS in a bright patch of moonlight. The clearing still looked deserted.

However, he knew better.

Amy shrieked as a flash of red fell out of the sky and knocked the Doctor to the ground. Most of the red paint had worn off the invisible creature, but it was still highlighted by a narrow swath of red. Amy's shrill voice became louder, but unfortunately the Dragh ignore her. It wrestled the sonic screwdriver from his grasp and hurled it into the woods. Amy flung herself at the invisible creature, her hands wildly clawing at it. She must have struck part of it, as it screeched and hissed, flinging her to one side. The torch went flying out of her grasp and fell to the ground with a _thud._

"Amy!"

The Doctor scrambled to his feet, rushing towards her. The Dragh caught him, and once again he fell to the ground.

"Do not run, Time Lord," the colourless voice said. "It is a sign of weakness, and we do not wish to capture the voice of the weak."

"All the more reason to run," the Doctor muttered.

Soft thuds sounded around the clearing, stirring up fallen leaves and small pieces of undergrowth. The rest of the Draghs had arrived.

They were in trouble now.

Amy pushed herself off the ground, wincing, and quickly collected the fallen torch. "Okay, you Draghs," she said. "This is how things are going to go. Leave the Doctor alone, or I swear I'm going to scream like hell until you all go deaf – do you understand?"

One of the Draghs laughed. It was a strangely vacant sound, empty of the rolling sound that filled human laughter. "Little girl," the Dragh whispered, its voice gusting like the wind, "do you really think that will stop us? You surprised us at the Austen girl's house; we were taken aback, as we were uncertain how potent your screaming voice was. However, it will effect us no longer. You are weak, just as your Time Lord is weak. There is nothing to be scared of from you, Amelia Pond, as you are nothing."

Amy froze. "How do you know my name?"

"Your name reverberates in the sound of your voice, Amelia Pond," the voice replied. "We knew it the moment we heard you speak."

Amy's eyes narrowed. "That's rather anti-climactic," she said. "I was expecting something a lot nastier."

Wind gusted around the clearing, tearing at Amy's hair and showering her with debris from the forest floor. She raised a hand, shielding her eyes. "Do not mock us, girl! We are in a far more formidable position than you. We have your Time Lord, and we shall take his voice."

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Amy said. "So you've already said. But why? You're used to human voices, aren't you?"

"Amy!" the Doctor warned, trying to get up from the ground. He managed to make it to his feet, but the moment to tried to run forward he was held back, restrained by an invisible force. No doubt he was surrounded by Draghs.

"Time Lords are different," Amy continued. "You don't want some nasty Gallifreyan voice that's changed a million times, do you? You want to stick to something a little closer to home."

"Amy—"

Amy glanced at him, her eyes blazing. "Time Lord voices – trust me, they're annoying. You don't want that. An annoying voice would be _horrible_ to digest, don't you think?"

"Amy, seriously, stop this—"

A flash of red appeared before Amy. "Do you suggest that you would sacrifice your voice for him?"

Amy paused. "Possibly?"

"Your _human_ voice?"

"Human _time traveller,"_ Amy said quickly. "That makes me a hell of a lot more interesting than Jane Austen. Oh! And you like my screaming, you even said so yourself."

"You would give your voice to us willingly?"

"If you let the Doctor go," Amy said.

"Our brethren would think it an insult to our species if we gave up the opportunity to take a Time Lord's voice!" the Dragh hissed.

"Pfft, Time Lords," Amy said. "Who needs them?" She laughed and shot the Doctor another look.

She was stalling for time. Whatever plan she had up her sleeve, it had better happen soon, otherwise Amy could very well lose her life. The Doctor tried to shake off his invisible captors, but their grip was iron-clad.

"Don't listen to her!" the Doctor said suddenly. "She only has a human voice. One like millions of others."

The floating splotch of red paint moved, flickering through the air, coming closer. "You try to intervene!"

"Amelia Pond," the Doctor continued, "just listen to her! Who wants to sustain themselves on a Scottish accent?"

"Oi!" Amy shouted.

"See what I mean?" the Doctor pointed out.

"I'm not even going to dignify that with a response," Amy said.

Another gust of wind. "Our patience is wearing thin!"

"Good," Amy said. "That's exactly what I was hoping for."

A bright blue figure appeared before the TARDIS' closed doors, flickering into existence. The sudden glow surprised the Draghs and there was a flurry of blurred outlines as they flew out of the light's path.

It was a hologram of Jane Austen, holding a book in her hands. She looked up once, a confident little smile on her face, and began to read in a clear, steady voice.

"_It is a truth universal acknowledge, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife."_

There was an unearthly shriek, louder and much more painful than anything Amy had ever produced. The paint-smeared Dragh flew high up into the clearing, fleeing the haunting words of the holographic Jane.

"_However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood—"_

A desperate howling had begun. Wind gusted around the clearing, tearing at their hair and their clothes. The Doctor felt his captors' grip on him slacken; he shook himself loose and sprinted towards Amy, who was trying to keep her hair out of her eyes.

"Are you all right?" he asked.

"Yes, I'm fine – hush!"

"—_this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered as the rightful property of some one or other of their daughters." _

"The Draghs are running away," the Doctor said quickly in undertone. "The hologram is scaring them senseless – technology like that alters Jane's voice, mutating it to their senses. They can't bear to listen to a metamorphosis of the voice they once hunted. It's utterly painful for them."

He stepped forward and clicked the sonic screwdriver. The clearing lit up with the bright green silhouettes of the fleeing Draghs.

"'_My dear Mr Bennet,' said his lady to him one day…"_

The hologram continued reading. For one moment, in the midst of the turmoil caused by the Draghs departure, it seemed as though Amy and the Doctor were alone. But then, there was a flash of red that tumbled down from the sky and a thud on the ground. Dirt scattered in every direction at its impact, and they could hear the thundering steps of its approach.

"I WILL NOT BE MOCKED!"

The Doctor stepped in front of Amy. "Who said we were making fun of you?" he asked.

The blow came quickly and without warning. The Doctor collapsed backwards into Amy; they both tumbled to the ground.

"I WILL SEIZE BOTH YOUR VOICES!"

"_Mr. Bennet made no answer…"_

The TARDIS doors flung wide open, spilling golden light out into the clearing from its interior. The brightness illuminated the Dragh's form. A great, winged humanoid stood before them, its hands clawed, its head oddly bird-like. For a moment, it seemed as though it would devour them both in its anger, but then a shrill, piercing shriek burst forth from the TARDIS.

The real Jane Austen stepped out of the time machine and through her holographic self. While the hologram continue to read from her novel, Jane was screaming as if her life depended on it. It was a terrifying thing to behold: swathed in the golden light of the TARDIS and the bluish hues of the nearby hologram, she looked almost godly and her scream was one of anger and utter power.

The Dragh crumbled. It collapsed within itself, flickering in and out of sight, until it was no more than half its size and becoming more and more incorporeal as it shrank. Finally, it seemed as though the wind blew it to shreds and it disappeared altogether.

Jane fell silent.

"'_Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs Long says that Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England—" _The hologram stopped suddenly, flickered and went out.

Rory stuck his head out the TARDIS door.

"Is everyone all right?"

"Just about," Amy said, slowly getting to her feet.

"Fine, yes, fine," the Doctor said. He crossed the clearing and picked up his fallen sonic screwdriver. Clicking it on, he scanned the area once and turned it off. "Huh. No more Draghs."

"Well, that's good, isn't it?" Rory said as he joined Amy.

"Really, Rory, I'm all right," Amy said, fondness creeping into her voice even as she tried to avoid his help.

"Yes. Yes, I would say that is good." The Doctor fell silent, gazing at the spot where the paint-smeared Dragh had disappeared. "Defeated by a book and a scream," he said quietly. "That's one for the records."

"I couldn't leave you to sacrifice yourself on my account, sir," Jane said. "I had to do something." She was still clutching the copy of _Pride and Prejudice._

"Are you all right, Jane?" the Doctor asked.

She shrugged. "My throat is a bit sore, I admit, but I am well. Relieved. Good," she added hastily. "And many other words I can think of, but I will spare you having to listen to me act like a living lexicon."

The Doctor chuckled. "You were brilliant, Jane," he said.

"Yes, well…" She smiled. "They were defeated by the very voice they craved. There is some poetic justice to that, don't you think?"

"I would say so," Amy said.

"Rory," the Doctor said.

"Yeah?"

"Nice plan."

"Thank you."

"Did you know it was going to work?"

"Not at all."

The Doctor laughed. "Those are the best kind of plans!"

"I hate to interrupt the round of congratulations," Jane said, "but I'm afraid that I must be heading home now. I am quite certain I have had enough adventure for one evening."

"Oh, right!"

For a moment, it was as if they had forgotten just who was standing in their midst. It must have had something to do with the borrowed clothes Jane was wearing – the Doctor had almost mistaken her for someone else.

He quickly ran to the TARDIS and shut the doors. "Well, I suppose here's no harm in accompanying you home, Jane," he said.

Relief from the Draghs' defeat washing over them, they took off through the woods, heading back towards Jane's house, laughing and talking. Amy mentioned how she had found Jane reading _Harry Potter_ in the TARDIS library, which received an immediate chorus on laughs on the account that it provided a hilarious mental image.

The Doctor decided to let the discrepancies about Jane Austen reading _Harry Potter_ go. Besides, after what Jane had witnessed tonight, it wasn't really harmful.

"I personally don't see what is so amusing," Jane said.

They eventually made it back through the woods, over the stone wall, down the lane and into the Austen's front yard. Jane sighed fondly when she saw her front door. She turned to her companions and smiled.

"I suppose this is good-bye," she said. "Though, I suppose, Amy—"

"Yes?"

"May I keep the clothes? I just realised that I left my own in your marvellous star machine."

Amy laughed. "Sure, I don't mind. Keep them out sight, yeah? They're not going to be around for another couple of centuries."

I will." She quickly hugged Amy, before turning to Rory and giving him one of her short curtseys that looked very strange when she wasn't wearing a long dress. "Thank you," she said. "Your plan was splendid."

"Ah, well, thanks."

"Truly. I do not know what I would have done without your help."

"Don't mention it." Rory stood there awkwardly for a moment, and then bowed.

Jane laughed and hugged him as well. "I am sad at this parting," she said, stepping back. "If I had had more time, I am sure we would have all been fast friends."

"Are you sure you don't want to come with us?" Amy asked.

Jane shook her head. "I cannot," she said, glancing at the Doctor. "I have a feeling that I am needed here, in my own time. I have novels to write, characters to create, and my own family to attend to. As much as the offer is tempting, I think I have had enough adventure in the course of one evening to last me my entire life." She paused. "However, I am certain that if I ever run into fantastical beings again, you three will not be far behind." She grinned, glancing at the Doctor. "If I may speak to you in private, sir?"

"Of course," the Doctor said.

He and Jane walked a little ways away, following the small garden path. Jane was still holding _Pride and Prejudice_ in her hands; her fingers were pressed so tightly against its cover that their tips were turning white.

"You're going to have to give that back to me, Jane," he said quietly.

"I know," she said. "But I feel that if I hold on to it for as long as I can, I won't forget it as quickly."

"Were you planning on forgetting?"

She smiled. "Somehow part of me still thinks this is a dream. Perhaps it is that part that does not want to let go." She paused. "I feel quite liberated, Doctor. My mind is full of ideas, I can hardly wait to set about writing them."

"That would be the Draghs," the Doctor said. "Or lack of them, at any rate. They make the worst writer's block in the universe. Now that they're gone, you're free to think freely again."

"I have you to thank."

"I didn't do much."

"You were there to save me from their grasp, and that's what matters." She smiled. "And you also gave me hope as a writer. In recent days, I have been lacking that. I know that no one should know their future, but it gives me much comfort to know that the day will come when there will be many who read and enjoy my novels. Or attempt to dispose of them in a privy, like Amy," she added lightly.

The Doctor snorted. "Well, not everyone is quite as thoughtful as Amy."

"I wish I had the time to thank you properly," Jane said.

"You don't have to."

"That does not matter; I want to. And someday, perhaps, I will find a way to send you my thanks." She lifted her head. "The sun is rising," she said. "Look."

"Ah. Pretty."

"Very." She turned and curtseyed. "I must return home before my parents wake and find me out here in these ridiculous clothes."

The Doctor bowed. "It has been a pleasure, Jane."

"Indeed. Though perhaps much more exciting than I could ever have imagined." She handed _Pride and Prejudice_ back. "I do like the title."

"I'd expect so – after all, you thought of it."

"A future version of myself thought of it," Jane said, her eyes sparkling. "Doctor, there is one thing I would ask you."

"Yes?"

"You travel a great many places and through many eras. Will I ever see you again?"

"Maybe," the Doctor said as they began to walk back to the front yard. "Maybe not. It's not really for me to say."

Jane curtseyed and waved good-bye to them once more before disappearing through her front door. Once she was gone, Amy, Rory and the Doctor began to pick their way back up the lane as the sky slowly lightened.

"Now, the funny thing about historical figures," the Doctor said, leaping over the low stone wall, "is that out of all the people in the universe, they always seem to be the ones who attract trouble. Especially outer-space trouble. They're like alien magnets."

Amy raised an eyebrow. "So, you're outer-space trouble, then?"

The Doctor opened his mouth.

Rory was laughing.

"That's not what I meant at all!" the Doctor exclaimed

"You kind of walked right into that one," Rory said.

The Doctor sighed. "You people… you'd think there was a personal abuse limit for one day…" He shook his head and continued as they tramped through the woods. "Anyway, as I was saying: historical figures always attract trouble because sooner or later, someone has heard their name and singles them out for some reason. Or they become famous because they walk into trouble. Or they're geniuses and trouble just happens to find them."

Amy groaned. "Is there a point to this, Doctor?"

"There's always a point, Amy. I'm just taking my own time getting there."

They scrambled up the little hill towards the clearing where the TARDIS had landed. By now the sun had risen over the horizon, casting its warm rays across a cloudless sky.

"So," the Doctor said as he pulled out his key and unlocked the door, "the thing I'm interested in is exactly how much of this is supposed to happen, and how much is random chance. There are fixed moments in time where everything stays the same and there are opportunities in time where anything could happen, but that's just a generalization."

"So…?" Rory said.

"So, there's something that's very funny that I completely forgot about until now," the Doctor said, passing through the console room and bounding up the stairs. Amy and Rory followed. "I didn't know what to think of it back when it happened, but I just realised that I was missing the pieces to the puzzle."

"What puzzle?" Amy asked.

They were walking at a brisk pace down the corridors, heading for the library. When they reached it, the Doctor was still speaking as he rushed down one of the aisles and up a staircase, leaving Amy and Rory standing in the middle of the room.

"The funny thing is," the Doctor was saying, his voice echoing around the large, cathedral-like room, "I've met Jane Austen before. I told you that – I met her when she was quite a bit older than she is now. But I met her such a long time ago, from my point of view, that is. I was several centuries younger then, and looked quite a bit older." He paused. "Yeah, never mind that, Time Lord stuff… As far as I was concerned, it was her first time meeting me. Funny how time travel works. Aha!"

He had found the volume he was looking for and clambered back down the stairs. It was a good-sized book, wrapped and sealed in paper. "She gave me this. I had no idea why, but I accepted it anyway. Then I chucked it in here and didn't think of it again until just right now."

"What is it?" Amy asked.

"I have no idea. Let's find out."

Grinning, the Doctor unwrapped the book he had received many, many years ago from Jane. It was a publication from 1816. Embossed on its dark cover was the title and author: _Emily: a novel in three volumes, by a Lady._

Amy picked it up. "I didn't think she wrote anything like this," she said.

"Well, maybe we changed things," Rory said.

"Maybe they were supposed to happen," the Doctor said. He took the book back and opened the front cover. A note fell out of it. The Doctor picked it up and unfolded it. _"To the Doctor and Mr and Mrs Pond,"_ he read. _"I hope this note finds you all in good health, whenever you happen to receive it. Firstly, I must apologize to Mrs Pond for calling her such; I know she will take offense, and truly, I plead guilty old-fashioned formalities that have become even stronger as I have aged." _The Doctor raised an eyebrow.

Amy sighed, blowing hair out of her face. "Get on with it," she said. "What else does she say?"

"_Secondly, though it has been many years for me since I saw you last, I have never forgotten my adventure that night, nor the many strange sights I saw. I have kept them to myself, never daring to share them with even my closest friends. I have sought to thank you for your aid, and though you startled and frightened me very much at first, I have come, when remembering our adventure, to think of you all as friends. Unfortunately, as you must be aware, it is impossible for me to send a message to a band who travel through time, so therefore I must wait in hopes that I will encounter you once more, or that you will eventually find your way to this book and, therefore, this note._

"_This is the novel which I was inspired to write when I first heard your voices in the woods by Steventon all those long years ago. I have never shared it with anyone, save my sister Cassandra, and had it published in secret. This novel is for you three alone, my friends; no one else shall set eyes upon it. That day in the woods, I created characters which I based on the sound of your voices. Now having met and spoken with you, I hope that I was able to refine my characters so as to be fictional counterparts to your own delightful persons. _

"_I hope you enjoy this small adventure of Emily, Henry and John. Though it is not quite as madly beautiful as the one I shared with you, I hope it is enough to convey my thanks for what you have done for me. I am very blessed to have encountered you, even though I would say in retrospect that it was _you_ who encountered _me _(it is still shocking to think of the way you intruded upon my house, even though it was many years ago!). _

"_Lovingly to you all, and may you find many more adventures – Jane." _

The Doctor paused and folded the note.

"Well, that's something," he said.

_fin_

_

* * *

_

**A/N: **Thank you very much to all who have read! This is the end of this particular story, and I hope you enjoyed! It was a lot of fun to write, and I was trying to channel the spirit of the TV show and the way its episodes are formatted. I hope that you find the ending satisfactory and, really, all I can say again is thank you so much for reading. To those who have left comments, special thanks! It's always great to hear from readers, especially their reactions and thoughts.

Thanks again!

~Idrelle


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